Recently a friend asked me how I remain happy in today's world. This is my quick response.
It is my belief that Americans are brainwashed to be consumers. We are told that we must have this life or that life in order to live a good life. Of course, that good life usually revolves around stuff. This has been drilled into our heads since birth and it is part of who we are. We have been told that we should have everything we want otherwise we will not be happy, so you better go get those things if you don't yet have them. These things are not only material objects or consumer goods but wealth and "love." We are told we need to be happy but how can one get happy, they get stuff to make them happy, but what if they can't get that stuff? Now they aren't happy and they were told that they are supposed to be happy so this leads them to be even unhappier. It is a vicious cycle.
So what is one to do? Like addiction recovery, one has to admit that they are brainwashed. It isn't the easiest thing to do because it started in infancy. My parents didn't have TVs until they were around five years old, and had been able to have some quiet time for mental development, and even they ended up brainwashed. So for us people who were brought up around the TV it is wired into our brains. Repudiating the television and its message is not easy. It's much like an abused child not wanting to admit that they have been abused but we have been. Everything the TV and our culture have fed us, in regards to the good life, has to be discarded. In order to rid oneself of its brainwashing one might have to attack it or abandon it until one is on the path to recovery. I am saying this with all seriousness. I am not being tongue in cheek.
What matters in life? Figuring this out is paramount to being content. I think happiness is an illusion. It is a fleeting thing. People come into it periodically as positive things happen but just as everything else it goes away. As I wrote earlier, the television has got people to think that they have to be happy when it is, really, unachievable on the scale and length they imply is possible. Actually, not "possible" but expected instead. I think it was Kant who made the claim that sustained periods of happiness are not achievable. So ridding oneself of the notion that they should be "happy" is necessary. That too is a hard task for someone growing up and living in this culture.
But back to the question, "what really matters in life?" I think that if one really thinks seriously and honestly about that, the answers will come pretty easy. For example, my answer would be, my loved ones and friends, my health and well being, knowledge and truth, ethics and fairness, and a roof over my head. Sure iPods and toys are cool and everything but they really don't matter. They can make life a little more enjoyable as entertainment but they have no real value, except the hundreds of dollars Apple charges.
Don't get me wrong, iPods are nice and the ability to have them is even nicer. By living in America, at this moment in time, we are some of the luckiest people to have ever lived. We have absolutely no problems finding enough food today since one can find a full meal for three bucks or less. Our health and well-being is unlike any time in history and should only continue to improve up until the Superbugs begin to emerge and kill us all. We have heat, electricity, tons of toys and a smidgen of basic rights guaranteed to us. (Hi Vice President Cheney)
Sure it is also depressing that living in America, at this time, makes us the meanest, greediest, most imperialist bullies. We are okay with torturing people, invading nations and flaunting international norms but things change. It sometimes requires action but things do change for the better. Never before had a war been protested before it began, even if it didn't stop it.
The basic level of freedoms we have is amazing and taken for granted. All one has to do is look around a world map and they will find that there are few countries where people have the rights, got through popular struggle, that we in the West have. We can basically do and say whatever we want.
I think Bertrand Russell was right when he said that time enjoyed wasted is not wasted time. I think too, that he argues in In Praise of Idleness that whole point of working is leisure time. Do what you enjoy as often as you can and see work and money as means not ends.
Of course it isn't possible to never be upset or depressed. Humans have developed the emotions we have for a reason. Unfortunately they can be destructive if not managed so we need to be able to recognize them. It may not be the easiest task but we should try to be able to look at ourselves in the third person.
None of this is easy. It is constant work. It isn't like you flip a switch and you now have a new outlook on life and "job over." Life is difficult and it continuously throws shit at us that we don't like. Our culture is a toxic one. We are forced to work too much and under too much stress but we have to keep in mind that we aren't making shoes for Nike in Indonesia. If we just sit back and expect that we won't be affected by the outside world we are headed for disaster. Again, Russell said, "The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible." We have to acknowledge it, overcome it and try to live a content life.
Oh ya, and listen to punk rock.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Normally I don't post this kind of shit.
HOW SMART IS YOUR RIGHT FOOT?
1. Without anyone watching you (they will think you are GOOFY......)
and while sitting at your desk in front of your computer, lift your
right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number '6' in the air with your
right hand. Your foot will change direction.
1. Without anyone watching you (they will think you are GOOFY......)
and while sitting at your desk in front of your computer, lift your
right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number '6' in the air with your
right hand. Your foot will change direction.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Quick Thought
I have figured out a way to solve the Palestinian issue. Lets hold the Olympics in Tel Aviv.
This is my standard initial response to anyone asking about China, Tibet and the Olympics.
This is my standard initial response to anyone asking about China, Tibet and the Olympics.
Perspective
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND
Why is it that there is correlation data that suggests the more one has their needs met the more they are likely to be depressed? Is it just me or does this seem to go against common sense?
Is it that once someone has their basic needs met, they then have the time to search their lives for the other things that are so terrible? For instance, “now that my family isn’t being oppressed by an occupying army, I can finally see that I am unhappy because of my looks or my social status? Before this I was concerned with trivial things like the safety of my children. Now I have time to complain that I don’t get everything I feel entitled to, like straight teeth.”
Isn’t it a joke for Americans to not take into consideration that there are four billion other people with far harder lives? One billion people are virtually starving to death while another billion are eating themselves to death because their sad lives created an addiction to food? One billion are fighting to feed their children and westerners are whining about how terrible their lives are, to a point where it is so bad that they can not eat and must throw their dinners into the trash.
I guess what I am talking about is perspective, a thing that is in short supply in our world. Where one Jewish settler’s life is worth that of one hundred Palestinians. Where 3000 dead one day are significant but another 3000 dead, not so. Where one fat person’s hopes weren’t met but children are starving and they aren’t complaining because they don’t know a different life while the fat woman complains that if she was wealthy like Oprah, she too could lose weight.
One thing is true, that people with real problems at least attempt to remedy them, and are killed along the way. In America we feel as if we shouldn’t have to act, instead we should just get. Maybe Americans like to be fat and sad. Though doesn’t the term “like” convey a sense of enjoyment? Maybe people are happy being miserable? Seems oxymoronic to me.
Why is it that there is correlation data that suggests the more one has their needs met the more they are likely to be depressed? Is it just me or does this seem to go against common sense?
Is it that once someone has their basic needs met, they then have the time to search their lives for the other things that are so terrible? For instance, “now that my family isn’t being oppressed by an occupying army, I can finally see that I am unhappy because of my looks or my social status? Before this I was concerned with trivial things like the safety of my children. Now I have time to complain that I don’t get everything I feel entitled to, like straight teeth.”
Isn’t it a joke for Americans to not take into consideration that there are four billion other people with far harder lives? One billion people are virtually starving to death while another billion are eating themselves to death because their sad lives created an addiction to food? One billion are fighting to feed their children and westerners are whining about how terrible their lives are, to a point where it is so bad that they can not eat and must throw their dinners into the trash.
I guess what I am talking about is perspective, a thing that is in short supply in our world. Where one Jewish settler’s life is worth that of one hundred Palestinians. Where 3000 dead one day are significant but another 3000 dead, not so. Where one fat person’s hopes weren’t met but children are starving and they aren’t complaining because they don’t know a different life while the fat woman complains that if she was wealthy like Oprah, she too could lose weight.
One thing is true, that people with real problems at least attempt to remedy them, and are killed along the way. In America we feel as if we shouldn’t have to act, instead we should just get. Maybe Americans like to be fat and sad. Though doesn’t the term “like” convey a sense of enjoyment? Maybe people are happy being miserable? Seems oxymoronic to me.
Holy SHit!
You have to listen to this clip. From what I have read it is Illinois State Rep. Davis of Chicago. In this audio clip you hear her responding to an atheist activist. Just listen and imagine her talking that way about gays, blacks, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, or women. If she did there would be outrage but guess what this story is days old and you are just finally reading about it. Only because I peruse a certain section of the internet did I find it.
What is it about the religious that is so threatened by non-believers? Is it that deep down they know that a belief in some benevolent omnipotent Creator is illogical and absurd. It is like the kid with his fingers in his ears yelling, "blah blah blah I can't hear you. blah blah blah". Christ you would think that us atheists were a bunch of commies, oh wait a bunch of us are.
Just in case anyone is interested, here is her email. mdavis2147@aol.com
What is it about the religious that is so threatened by non-believers? Is it that deep down they know that a belief in some benevolent omnipotent Creator is illogical and absurd. It is like the kid with his fingers in his ears yelling, "blah blah blah I can't hear you. blah blah blah". Christ you would think that us atheists were a bunch of commies, oh wait a bunch of us are.
Just in case anyone is interested, here is her email. mdavis2147@aol.com
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Free Market, my ass.
For the last two years I have attempted to land a spot as a community columnist for the Milwaukee Journal and have been rejected both times. At first I blamed my poor writing skills. Then I blamed my category as a white man when they were looking for a diverse group. Both of these seemed totally acceptable to me. Sure I wrote a great piece about the how stupid the death penalty and they picked a guy who stated that people who would/should receive the death penalty are routinely let out of prison.
I think though after years of reading the columnists I have figured out one must have to do, and I am going to call them out this year when I try again. The one column they print every single year is a column attacking atheists, around 5% of the population, as being unethical and having no morals. One guy actually argued that atheists should go around and murder because they have no book telling them it is wrong. If the topic isn't on the depravity of non-Christians then you must write a column filled with logical fallacies like the one a couple of days ago. The use of the logical fallacy, begging the question so pissed me off I had to respond. I decided I would share it with people and her response.
I was reading your column in Thursday's paper and I came upon an interesting statement. You say, "Salaries, in a free market, are set by supply and demand" which I find interesting. You are said to be the business and economics chair of a local university so surely you can't really call America a free market. I believe you are purposely lying to people to advance your ideology. How can the chair of economics call our economy a free market? Is it a free market when we bailed out Lockheed and Chrysler? My father lost his job because his boss at his saving and loans gave out shotty loans and we bailed out the SnLs but
not the workers. Some estimates put the figure at half a trillion dollars. How does this jive with your fake free market? How about the 14 billion dollar bailout of the airlines after 9/11? How does that fit into your psueso-free market. What about subsidies to the oil industries? How is that a free market? What about all the programs for returning GIs from WWII? Was that that free market at work? With just these few simple examples it is obvious, to even a non-chair of economics, that we do not live in a free market. At best we live in a coporate socialist state with free markets for the citizen. Give out bad loans and the tax payer will bail you out, take a bad loan and you lose your house. Socialism for the rich and free markets for the poor.
I have no problem with peole being ideological but they should not be deceptive. If they are deceptive then it makes one wonder how good their arguments are.
Don't lie to the people. A chair of economics should know better.
Justin Loper
Her response:
Hello:
While we do not agree, thanks for responding.
Barbara
Really that is it. I call her a liar and she says she disagrees. She cares that much to get her beliefs out there but can not defend them? Truly sad. Not what I would expect from a chair of economics unless she studied under Dershowitz at Harvard.
I think though after years of reading the columnists I have figured out one must have to do, and I am going to call them out this year when I try again. The one column they print every single year is a column attacking atheists, around 5% of the population, as being unethical and having no morals. One guy actually argued that atheists should go around and murder because they have no book telling them it is wrong. If the topic isn't on the depravity of non-Christians then you must write a column filled with logical fallacies like the one a couple of days ago. The use of the logical fallacy, begging the question so pissed me off I had to respond. I decided I would share it with people and her response.
I was reading your column in Thursday's paper and I came upon an interesting statement. You say, "Salaries, in a free market, are set by supply and demand" which I find interesting. You are said to be the business and economics chair of a local university so surely you can't really call America a free market. I believe you are purposely lying to people to advance your ideology. How can the chair of economics call our economy a free market? Is it a free market when we bailed out Lockheed and Chrysler? My father lost his job because his boss at his saving and loans gave out shotty loans and we bailed out the SnLs but
not the workers. Some estimates put the figure at half a trillion dollars. How does this jive with your fake free market? How about the 14 billion dollar bailout of the airlines after 9/11? How does that fit into your psueso-free market. What about subsidies to the oil industries? How is that a free market? What about all the programs for returning GIs from WWII? Was that that free market at work? With just these few simple examples it is obvious, to even a non-chair of economics, that we do not live in a free market. At best we live in a coporate socialist state with free markets for the citizen. Give out bad loans and the tax payer will bail you out, take a bad loan and you lose your house. Socialism for the rich and free markets for the poor.
I have no problem with peole being ideological but they should not be deceptive. If they are deceptive then it makes one wonder how good their arguments are.
Don't lie to the people. A chair of economics should know better.
Justin Loper
Her response:
Hello:
While we do not agree, thanks for responding.
Barbara
Really that is it. I call her a liar and she says she disagrees. She cares that much to get her beliefs out there but can not defend them? Truly sad. Not what I would expect from a chair of economics unless she studied under Dershowitz at Harvard.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
New Controversy
BEWARE SOME GRAPHIC FOOTAGE
I have no problem calling out religious texts for the bullshit inside, like when the Bible says gays should be murdered and fortune tellers too. Oh ya and unruly children and your wife if she tries to take you away from God. Though to paint the entire group in this way is offensive to me because it is unfair. What about the Christians who slaughtered doctors for performing a procedure which is legal?
I once met a guy who moved hear from Holland and I was shocked so I asked him why. He said that Holland is becoming a very racist country, which surprised me. I now understand what he was saying.
One point from Chomsky. Chomsky has asked how come when a Muslim leader does something crazy it is because they are Muslims while no one says that Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon slaughtered 3.2 million Vietnamese because they were Christian. Somehow one's religion only affects them if they are Muslim.
I have no problem calling out religious texts for the bullshit inside, like when the Bible says gays should be murdered and fortune tellers too. Oh ya and unruly children and your wife if she tries to take you away from God. Though to paint the entire group in this way is offensive to me because it is unfair. What about the Christians who slaughtered doctors for performing a procedure which is legal?
I once met a guy who moved hear from Holland and I was shocked so I asked him why. He said that Holland is becoming a very racist country, which surprised me. I now understand what he was saying.
One point from Chomsky. Chomsky has asked how come when a Muslim leader does something crazy it is because they are Muslims while no one says that Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon slaughtered 3.2 million Vietnamese because they were Christian. Somehow one's religion only affects them if they are Muslim.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
New Mental Illness
A new mental illness is upon us. This mental illness plagues users of cell phones and blackberrys. They say that people are mentally ill because they are texting people too much. My guess is, had a newer mental illness that I have discovered been around when the telephone was introduced, people would have been talking about the new mental illness of people who talk on the phone too long. They would have argued that it is totally a different phenomena then talking to someone in person. Much like how iPods are more dangerous then their predecessor the walkman. Sure they are both mobile music devices but iPods are new and scary. In other words old people don't understand them.
You may wonder what this other new mental illness is that I have discovered. Of course, it should be known I hold no degree in any psychological field or any field for that matter. Still I think, I make just as much sense as the ones with letters after their names. My new mental illness is a mental illness that attempts to show that mental illness explains all behavior that doesn't fit some "norm".
Though at what point do we realize that abnormal is normal since everyone will have been diagnosed with some form of mental illness which in turn will turn the non-mentally ill into the mentally ill and the mentally ill into the norm?
You may wonder what this other new mental illness is that I have discovered. Of course, it should be known I hold no degree in any psychological field or any field for that matter. Still I think, I make just as much sense as the ones with letters after their names. My new mental illness is a mental illness that attempts to show that mental illness explains all behavior that doesn't fit some "norm".
Though at what point do we realize that abnormal is normal since everyone will have been diagnosed with some form of mental illness which in turn will turn the non-mentally ill into the mentally ill and the mentally ill into the norm?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Music videos
Here is a version of one the most important songs of my life.
Then the Housemartins
and Stereolab
Then the Housemartins
and Stereolab
Saturday, March 15, 2008
A LIBERAL DECALOGUE
By Bertrand Russell
Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness."
Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness."
Monday, March 10, 2008
McCain '08
A couple thoughts on the Democratic Nomination.
Let it be known that I am a Clinton-hater. I figure that information should be known so that everyone will understand my slant. I just have a few questions.
Hillary is pushing this narrative that she has the experience to come in, on day one, and begin fixing the problems. Okay that is fine, but what problems are there? Of these supposed problems, how many did Hillary vote for or the Democratic Party as a whole? Is one the problems the Iraq War? Didn’t she vote for the Iraq war? Is she going to take on the major financial businesses that are paying for her campaign? Is she going to demand they fix this housing mortgage mess or are the banks buying her off? Or could it be that they are paying her for all the work she did on the Finance Modernization Act when she was President, oops I mean First Lady?
What happens if Obama goes into the convention with a lead in delegates but the party chooses Hillary? Will a whole generation of voters be turned off? Will people revolt and flock to Nader? Would Obama even get behind her considering she is an immoral human or as Ms. Power called her “a monster?” Wouldn’t it be a coup d’etat?
Is it possible that Hillary is going to come out and explicitly claim that Barack is not qualified to be President with the hopes that McCain will beat him and she can run again in 2012? Is she that opportunistic and if so why are people supporting her?
Are older women just voting for Hillary out of their own selfish reasons of hoping to see a woman President before they die and if so, Why couldn’t Condee been the one?
Just a few thoughts.
Let it be known that I am a Clinton-hater. I figure that information should be known so that everyone will understand my slant. I just have a few questions.
Hillary is pushing this narrative that she has the experience to come in, on day one, and begin fixing the problems. Okay that is fine, but what problems are there? Of these supposed problems, how many did Hillary vote for or the Democratic Party as a whole? Is one the problems the Iraq War? Didn’t she vote for the Iraq war? Is she going to take on the major financial businesses that are paying for her campaign? Is she going to demand they fix this housing mortgage mess or are the banks buying her off? Or could it be that they are paying her for all the work she did on the Finance Modernization Act when she was President, oops I mean First Lady?
What happens if Obama goes into the convention with a lead in delegates but the party chooses Hillary? Will a whole generation of voters be turned off? Will people revolt and flock to Nader? Would Obama even get behind her considering she is an immoral human or as Ms. Power called her “a monster?” Wouldn’t it be a coup d’etat?
Is it possible that Hillary is going to come out and explicitly claim that Barack is not qualified to be President with the hopes that McCain will beat him and she can run again in 2012? Is she that opportunistic and if so why are people supporting her?
Are older women just voting for Hillary out of their own selfish reasons of hoping to see a woman President before they die and if so, Why couldn’t Condee been the one?
Just a few thoughts.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Israeli Nazis
I truly believe that we are seeing an end to Israel as presently structured. I fear as Israel realizes it is losing it will go on a major offensive and kill many. It is just amazing how fearless some people are and how full of fear others are.
Fuck the Nazis. SOme people don't like making any analogy between the Nazis and the Israeli state but when your leaders say things like this it makes it much easier.
iPod/iPhone Link
Fuck the Nazis. SOme people don't like making any analogy between the Nazis and the Israeli state but when your leaders say things like this it makes it much easier.
iPod/iPhone Link
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Finally I Have Someone I Can Vote For!!!!
So Ralph has entered the building. Early results are in and it looks as if the media has decided just to ignore him. Of course, they had to mention the news from yesterday but it had to be done in a dismissive way. The narrative is that Ralph is losing it and is going to taint his legacy as a great champion of the people. The problem is, he doesn’t give a shit. If Mr. Nader had this enormous ego, that everyone attempts to pin on him, then wouldn’t he be far more concerned about his legacy? Even the humble Bill Clinton was concerned about his legacy. That being said, I still am not clear as to why he is running.
In 2000 the American public was slowly moving back to the left, towards the center. People had finally caught on to the eight years of fake liberalism. The Clinton Administration had moved right of center and began neo-liberal colonialism on the world under the guise of free trade. People were sick and began to mobilize. Culminating in the riots in Seattle in 1999. Suddenly everyone knew what the W.T.O., I.M.F. and the World Bank were, and it mattered to them. This economic colonialism was rearing its ugly head and people began to have regrets.
Then comes election 2000, the most important of our lives, and it is more of the same. Two sons of congressmen, Al Gore Jr. Vs. George Bush Jr., in “the battle of the unperceived aristocracy.” AL Gore had a formidable opponent in Bill Bradley and many of us still wish Bradley had won but he didn’t. Bush was battling McCain and could have lost had it not been for Rove’s stories about McCain’s black baby, the baby I believe was actually Vietnamese. That destroyed McCain in S. Carolina and the rest is all Nader’s fault.
Then comes the 2004 election. The most important in our lifetime, we were told. We had to defeat this Bush character at all costs. This is so important we don’t care who the nomination is as long as it is Anybody But Bush. The Democrats were so determined to win they picked a candidate that wanted to send more troops into Iraq when the actual Democratic voters wanted the opposite to be happening. Since Kerry was Anybody But Bush it worked out perfectly. Here we had both candidates advocating the continued, and in Kerry’s case an increased, presence in Iraq. Either way you voted you voted in favor of the war. (If one wants to argue that Kerry would have begun a drawdown of troops, they should remember why the Democrats won in 2006 and what the results were).
The problem is that some of us can’t vote to continue the illegal occupation of a foreign nation. It goes against our morals. We don’t believe that America owns the world. Which is exactly what all these other people believe otherwise the rhetoric used would be far different. For instance, Iran is meddling in Iraq? They have no right? What about our meddling in Iraq? It isn’t meddling when you own the world. The sad thing too was that the Democratic base, as a result of their candidate being pro-war, had to legitimize his position so they adopted, what I, at the time, referred to as “the New White Man’s Burden”. In other words, us Americans (whites) need to run the affairs of the Iraqis (browns) because don’t have the ability. That is what voting for Kerry represented, to many of us people who believe in ethics and morality, and Ralph gave us an out.
To be sure, I am a little uncertain why Ralph is running again but I think it may be that he doesn’t care about his reputation anymore, if he ever did. I have a feeling that Ralph is willing to destroy his reputation in hopes of advancing his strongly held beliefs. This idea that his morals/values are somehow disingenuous is bullshit.
Is Ralph going to accomplish his mission? My guess is no. The American Public prefers denial to reality. As long as they have a paycheck they could care less that they are serfs. It won’t be until the economy begins to truly crash that we acknowledge all the people who, in the past, had warned us but, by that time, it will be too late.
I think that Ralph will spend the rest of his entire life trying to get people to understand the shear level of crimes being committed against the American citizens and the rest of the globe. The sad fact, for Americans who prefer to live in denial and don’t see themselves as responsible for the actions of their government, is that Ralph is likely to live a lot longer too since the man lives off chickpeas.
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” Bertrand Russell
In 2000 the American public was slowly moving back to the left, towards the center. People had finally caught on to the eight years of fake liberalism. The Clinton Administration had moved right of center and began neo-liberal colonialism on the world under the guise of free trade. People were sick and began to mobilize. Culminating in the riots in Seattle in 1999. Suddenly everyone knew what the W.T.O., I.M.F. and the World Bank were, and it mattered to them. This economic colonialism was rearing its ugly head and people began to have regrets.
Then comes election 2000, the most important of our lives, and it is more of the same. Two sons of congressmen, Al Gore Jr. Vs. George Bush Jr., in “the battle of the unperceived aristocracy.” AL Gore had a formidable opponent in Bill Bradley and many of us still wish Bradley had won but he didn’t. Bush was battling McCain and could have lost had it not been for Rove’s stories about McCain’s black baby, the baby I believe was actually Vietnamese. That destroyed McCain in S. Carolina and the rest is all Nader’s fault.
Then comes the 2004 election. The most important in our lifetime, we were told. We had to defeat this Bush character at all costs. This is so important we don’t care who the nomination is as long as it is Anybody But Bush. The Democrats were so determined to win they picked a candidate that wanted to send more troops into Iraq when the actual Democratic voters wanted the opposite to be happening. Since Kerry was Anybody But Bush it worked out perfectly. Here we had both candidates advocating the continued, and in Kerry’s case an increased, presence in Iraq. Either way you voted you voted in favor of the war. (If one wants to argue that Kerry would have begun a drawdown of troops, they should remember why the Democrats won in 2006 and what the results were).
The problem is that some of us can’t vote to continue the illegal occupation of a foreign nation. It goes against our morals. We don’t believe that America owns the world. Which is exactly what all these other people believe otherwise the rhetoric used would be far different. For instance, Iran is meddling in Iraq? They have no right? What about our meddling in Iraq? It isn’t meddling when you own the world. The sad thing too was that the Democratic base, as a result of their candidate being pro-war, had to legitimize his position so they adopted, what I, at the time, referred to as “the New White Man’s Burden”. In other words, us Americans (whites) need to run the affairs of the Iraqis (browns) because don’t have the ability. That is what voting for Kerry represented, to many of us people who believe in ethics and morality, and Ralph gave us an out.
To be sure, I am a little uncertain why Ralph is running again but I think it may be that he doesn’t care about his reputation anymore, if he ever did. I have a feeling that Ralph is willing to destroy his reputation in hopes of advancing his strongly held beliefs. This idea that his morals/values are somehow disingenuous is bullshit.
Is Ralph going to accomplish his mission? My guess is no. The American Public prefers denial to reality. As long as they have a paycheck they could care less that they are serfs. It won’t be until the economy begins to truly crash that we acknowledge all the people who, in the past, had warned us but, by that time, it will be too late.
I think that Ralph will spend the rest of his entire life trying to get people to understand the shear level of crimes being committed against the American citizens and the rest of the globe. The sad fact, for Americans who prefer to live in denial and don’t see themselves as responsible for the actions of their government, is that Ralph is likely to live a lot longer too since the man lives off chickpeas.
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” Bertrand Russell
Where's the Iraqi Voice?
By: Noam Chomsky
THE US occupying army in Iraq (euphemistically called the Multi-National Force-Iraq) carries out extensive studies of popular attitudes. Its December 2007 report of a study of focus groups was uncharacteristically upbeat.
The report concluded that the survey "provides very strong evidence" to refute the common view that "national reconciliation is neither anticipated nor possible". On the contrary, the survey found that a sense of "optimistic possibility permeated all focus groups ... and far more commonalities than differences are found among these seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis."
This discovery of "shared beliefs" among Iraqis throughout the country is "good news, according to a military analysis of the results", Karen deYoung reports in The Washington Post.
The "shared beliefs" were identified in the report. To quote deYoung, "Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of 'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation."
So, according to Iraqis, there is hope of national reconciliation if the invaders, responsible for the internal violence, withdraw and leave Iraq to Iraqis.
The report did not mention other good news: Iraqis appear to accept the highest values of Americans, as established at the Nuremberg Tribunal -- specifically, that aggression -- "invasion by its armed forces" by one state "of the territory of another state" -- is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". The chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, forcefully insisted that the Tribunal would be mere farce if we do not apply its principles to ourselves.
Unlike Iraqis, the United States, indeed the West generally, rejects the lofty values professed at Nuremberg, an interesting indication of the substance of the famous "clash of civilisations".
More good news was reported by Gen David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker during the extravaganza staged on September 11, 2007. Only a cynic might imagine that the timing was intended to insinuate the Bush-Cheney claims of links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, so that by committing the "supreme international crime" they were defending the world against terror -- which increased sevenfold as a result of the invasion, according to an analysis last year by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank.
Petraeus and Crocker provided figures to show that the Iraqi government was greatly accelerating spending on reconstruction, reaching a quarter of the funding set aside for that purpose. Good news indeed, until it was investigated by the Government Accountability Office, which found that the actual figure was one-sixth of what Petraeus and Crocker reported, a 50 per cent decline from the preceding year.
More good news is the decline in sectarian violence, attributable in part to the success of the murderous ethnic cleansing that Iraqis blame on the invasion; there are fewer targets for sectarian killing. But it is also attributable to Washington's decision to support the tribal groups that had organised to drive out Iraqi Al Qaeda, and to an increase in US troops.
It is possible that Petraeus's strategy may approach the success of the Russians in Chechnya, where fighting is now "limited and sporadic, and Grozny is in the midst of a building boom" after having been reduced to rubble by the Russian attack, CJ Chivers reports in the New York Times last September.
Perhaps some day Baghdad and Fallujah too will enjoy "electricity restored in many neighbourhoods, new businesses opening and the city's main streets repaved", as in booming Grozny. Possible, but dubious, considering the likely consequence of creating warlord armies that may be the seeds of even greater sectarian violence, adding to the "accumulated evil" of the aggression. Iraqis are not alone in believing that national reconciliation is possible. A Canadian-run poll found that Afghans are hopeful about the future and favour the presence of Canadian and other foreign troops -- the "good news" that made the headlines.
The small print suggests some qualifications. Only 20 per cent "think the Taleban will prevail once foreign troops leave". Three-quarters support negotiations between the US-backed Karzai government and the Taleban, and over half favour a coalition government. The great majority therefore strongly disagree with the US-Canadian stance, and believe that peace is possible with a turn towards peaceful means. Though the question was not asked in the poll, it seems a reasonable surmise that the foreign presence is favoured for aid and reconstruction.
There are, of course, numerous questions about polls in countries under foreign military occupation, particularly in places like southern Afghanistan. But the results of the Iraq and Afghan studies conform to earlier ones, and should not be dismissed.
Recent polls in Pakistan also provide "good news" for Washington. Fully 5 per cent favour allowing US or other foreign troops to enter Pakistan "to pursue or capture Al Qaeda fighters". Nine per cent favour allowing US forces "to pursue and capture Taleban insurgents who have crossed over from Afghanistan".
Almost half favour allowing Pakistani troops to do so. And only a little more than 80 per cent regard the US military presence in Asia and Afghanistan as a threat to Pakistan, while an overwhelming majority believe that the United States is trying to harm the Islamic world. The good news is that these results are a considerable improvement over October 2001, when a Newsweek poll found that "eighty-three per cent of Pakistanis surveyed say they side with the Taleban, with a mere three per cent expressing support for the United States," and over 80 per cent described Osama bin Laden as a guerrilla and six per cent a terrorist.
Amid the outpouring of good news from across the region, there is now much earnest debate among political candidates, government officials and commentators concerning the options available to the US in Iraq. One voice is consistently missing: that of Iraqis. Their "shared beliefs" are well known, as in the past. But they cannot be permitted to choose their own path any more than young children can. Only the conquerors have that right.
Perhaps here too there are some lessons about the "clash of civilisations".
THE US occupying army in Iraq (euphemistically called the Multi-National Force-Iraq) carries out extensive studies of popular attitudes. Its December 2007 report of a study of focus groups was uncharacteristically upbeat.
The report concluded that the survey "provides very strong evidence" to refute the common view that "national reconciliation is neither anticipated nor possible". On the contrary, the survey found that a sense of "optimistic possibility permeated all focus groups ... and far more commonalities than differences are found among these seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis."
This discovery of "shared beliefs" among Iraqis throughout the country is "good news, according to a military analysis of the results", Karen deYoung reports in The Washington Post.
The "shared beliefs" were identified in the report. To quote deYoung, "Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of 'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation."
So, according to Iraqis, there is hope of national reconciliation if the invaders, responsible for the internal violence, withdraw and leave Iraq to Iraqis.
The report did not mention other good news: Iraqis appear to accept the highest values of Americans, as established at the Nuremberg Tribunal -- specifically, that aggression -- "invasion by its armed forces" by one state "of the territory of another state" -- is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". The chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, forcefully insisted that the Tribunal would be mere farce if we do not apply its principles to ourselves.
Unlike Iraqis, the United States, indeed the West generally, rejects the lofty values professed at Nuremberg, an interesting indication of the substance of the famous "clash of civilisations".
More good news was reported by Gen David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker during the extravaganza staged on September 11, 2007. Only a cynic might imagine that the timing was intended to insinuate the Bush-Cheney claims of links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, so that by committing the "supreme international crime" they were defending the world against terror -- which increased sevenfold as a result of the invasion, according to an analysis last year by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank.
Petraeus and Crocker provided figures to show that the Iraqi government was greatly accelerating spending on reconstruction, reaching a quarter of the funding set aside for that purpose. Good news indeed, until it was investigated by the Government Accountability Office, which found that the actual figure was one-sixth of what Petraeus and Crocker reported, a 50 per cent decline from the preceding year.
More good news is the decline in sectarian violence, attributable in part to the success of the murderous ethnic cleansing that Iraqis blame on the invasion; there are fewer targets for sectarian killing. But it is also attributable to Washington's decision to support the tribal groups that had organised to drive out Iraqi Al Qaeda, and to an increase in US troops.
It is possible that Petraeus's strategy may approach the success of the Russians in Chechnya, where fighting is now "limited and sporadic, and Grozny is in the midst of a building boom" after having been reduced to rubble by the Russian attack, CJ Chivers reports in the New York Times last September.
Perhaps some day Baghdad and Fallujah too will enjoy "electricity restored in many neighbourhoods, new businesses opening and the city's main streets repaved", as in booming Grozny. Possible, but dubious, considering the likely consequence of creating warlord armies that may be the seeds of even greater sectarian violence, adding to the "accumulated evil" of the aggression. Iraqis are not alone in believing that national reconciliation is possible. A Canadian-run poll found that Afghans are hopeful about the future and favour the presence of Canadian and other foreign troops -- the "good news" that made the headlines.
The small print suggests some qualifications. Only 20 per cent "think the Taleban will prevail once foreign troops leave". Three-quarters support negotiations between the US-backed Karzai government and the Taleban, and over half favour a coalition government. The great majority therefore strongly disagree with the US-Canadian stance, and believe that peace is possible with a turn towards peaceful means. Though the question was not asked in the poll, it seems a reasonable surmise that the foreign presence is favoured for aid and reconstruction.
There are, of course, numerous questions about polls in countries under foreign military occupation, particularly in places like southern Afghanistan. But the results of the Iraq and Afghan studies conform to earlier ones, and should not be dismissed.
Recent polls in Pakistan also provide "good news" for Washington. Fully 5 per cent favour allowing US or other foreign troops to enter Pakistan "to pursue or capture Al Qaeda fighters". Nine per cent favour allowing US forces "to pursue and capture Taleban insurgents who have crossed over from Afghanistan".
Almost half favour allowing Pakistani troops to do so. And only a little more than 80 per cent regard the US military presence in Asia and Afghanistan as a threat to Pakistan, while an overwhelming majority believe that the United States is trying to harm the Islamic world. The good news is that these results are a considerable improvement over October 2001, when a Newsweek poll found that "eighty-three per cent of Pakistanis surveyed say they side with the Taleban, with a mere three per cent expressing support for the United States," and over 80 per cent described Osama bin Laden as a guerrilla and six per cent a terrorist.
Amid the outpouring of good news from across the region, there is now much earnest debate among political candidates, government officials and commentators concerning the options available to the US in Iraq. One voice is consistently missing: that of Iraqis. Their "shared beliefs" are well known, as in the past. But they cannot be permitted to choose their own path any more than young children can. Only the conquerors have that right.
Perhaps here too there are some lessons about the "clash of civilisations".
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
My Mass Email
Hello Everybody,
I know, you never get emails from me but I have an important one.
I am determined to do anything in my power to have Hillary lose the nomination. Fuck, I even gave Obama a campaign contribution, I get some t-shirts out of the deal, and I don't even plan on voting for him in the general election.(we all have our beliefs).(full disclosure: I have never even fancied the idea, in the past, of giving money to a candidate and actually it goes against a great deal that I believe in)
It is becoming painfully obvious to Shelley and I, and the rest of the astute observers, that conservatives are voting for Hillary, in the open primary, in huge numbers. SO there is a chance that Obama may lose the vote in Wisconsin. So in the case that such an outcome is created I have come up with two talking points.
If Obama loses, "Well of course Obama lost. All the conservatives, due to Wisconsin's open primary, voted for Hillary because they know she is the only candidate who could possibly lose to the warmonger(fill in your favorite adjective) McCain. Doesn't this show the fear that conservatives have with a Obama/McCain race. They have all seen the numbers and Obama beats McCain without question whereas McCain wins against Hillary. IN other words Hillary won because conservatives are terrified."
If Obama wins it gets better, "Barack beat the odds with so many conservatives voting for Hillary. I know it was close(my prediction) but Obama still won. THis is a movement that can not be stopped."
So even if Obama loses, he can still win.
Later
loper
P.S. Hey Gordon, you make some t-shirts and I will buy some.
I know, you never get emails from me but I have an important one.
I am determined to do anything in my power to have Hillary lose the nomination. Fuck, I even gave Obama a campaign contribution, I get some t-shirts out of the deal, and I don't even plan on voting for him in the general election.(we all have our beliefs).(full disclosure: I have never even fancied the idea, in the past, of giving money to a candidate and actually it goes against a great deal that I believe in)
It is becoming painfully obvious to Shelley and I, and the rest of the astute observers, that conservatives are voting for Hillary, in the open primary, in huge numbers. SO there is a chance that Obama may lose the vote in Wisconsin. So in the case that such an outcome is created I have come up with two talking points.
If Obama loses, "Well of course Obama lost. All the conservatives, due to Wisconsin's open primary, voted for Hillary because they know she is the only candidate who could possibly lose to the warmonger(fill in your favorite adjective) McCain. Doesn't this show the fear that conservatives have with a Obama/McCain race. They have all seen the numbers and Obama beats McCain without question whereas McCain wins against Hillary. IN other words Hillary won because conservatives are terrified."
If Obama wins it gets better, "Barack beat the odds with so many conservatives voting for Hillary. I know it was close(my prediction) but Obama still won. THis is a movement that can not be stopped."
So even if Obama loses, he can still win.
Later
loper
P.S. Hey Gordon, you make some t-shirts and I will buy some.
Monday, February 18, 2008
60 Minutes Interview
Great video besides the fact that it really turns out to be a Ron Paul ad.
iPhone/iPod Link
Here is a 60 minutes interview I have seen a few times and finally found a youtube version to show you'all.
One question I have is simple, In the 1950's our country had enough money to house, clothe, feed and give medical care to all the baby boomers as they were growing up. Now our country is much more wealthy, a bunch of the boomers were slaughtered in 'Nam and yet we don't have the same amount of money as we did in the 1950's? Really, our country is poorer then it was in the '50's? How can that be? From every indicator I have seen our country is far richer then it was is the fifties yet we can't take care of these same people for another 18 years? Something just doesn't add up.
Also how is it that the rest of the Western world is able to give healthcare to its citizens without going broke? I highly doubt a conservative like Walker would advocate a single payer healthcare system like they have up in Canada.
Maybe what promises need to be rescinded are the ones to the corporations that say you don't need to pay taxes. I love how the first group to be denied help are actual human beings, and then later they think about going after corporations.
Maybe we need to go bankrupt (some of my friends would argue it isn't a question of "if") in order for us to see what really matters, humans not corporate profits.
iPhone/iPod Link
Here is a 60 minutes interview I have seen a few times and finally found a youtube version to show you'all.
One question I have is simple, In the 1950's our country had enough money to house, clothe, feed and give medical care to all the baby boomers as they were growing up. Now our country is much more wealthy, a bunch of the boomers were slaughtered in 'Nam and yet we don't have the same amount of money as we did in the 1950's? Really, our country is poorer then it was in the '50's? How can that be? From every indicator I have seen our country is far richer then it was is the fifties yet we can't take care of these same people for another 18 years? Something just doesn't add up.
Also how is it that the rest of the Western world is able to give healthcare to its citizens without going broke? I highly doubt a conservative like Walker would advocate a single payer healthcare system like they have up in Canada.
Maybe what promises need to be rescinded are the ones to the corporations that say you don't need to pay taxes. I love how the first group to be denied help are actual human beings, and then later they think about going after corporations.
Maybe we need to go bankrupt (some of my friends would argue it isn't a question of "if") in order for us to see what really matters, humans not corporate profits.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Hillary's Wintery Dillema
The Sunday schedule of Sen. Clinton includes stops in DePere, Wausau and Madison. Unfortunately Wisconsin is expected to get nearly a foot of snow. So the question is, will Hillary risk her and her staffer's necks, driving in a blizzard, in order to campaign? Or does she cancel her events and make the voters think she is conceding Wisconsin to Obama. Which in turn could be enough to catapult Obama to the nomination. So is it possible that a weather pattern could decide our next President? Isn't it stupid if it can?
Just some thoughts.
Just some thoughts.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone
Mafia Rules in the Middle East
By ALLAN NAIRN
I happened to learn about the car-bomb assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah commander, while talking to a Palestinian Fatah man who is a confidante of Mohammed Dahlan, who is famously reputed in the press to have been both a torturer and the CIA's man in Gaza, until the Hamas ousted him.
The Fatah / Dahlan man who imparted the assassination news hates Hamas with a passion -- he said that in last year's rival security forces showdown they grabbed and tortured him with knives for four hours (he was earlier tortured by the Israelis far longer, and worse, but views that as par for the course)-- and is no fan of Hezbollah, but he viewed the killing with irony. He said he was hearing that the Israelis were saying "we cleared the account with him (Mughniyeh)" (Palestinian Authority security forces, like those Dahlan ran, now have regular coordination meetings with their ostensible enemies, Israeli intelligence), yet he claimed that Mughniyeh's major killings had been more against other Arabs (eg. Saudi, Kuwait) than against Israelis.
The Israeli killing men are trying to contain their grins. The government issued a non-denial denial "Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add" -- i.e. they reject terror groups saying they were involved, but do not say that they were not involved.
The US, which had a $25 million bounty on Mughniyeh's head (he's implicated, in, among other things, the Lebanon Marine barracks bombing, the kidnap/ holding of AP reporter Terry Anderson, a TWA hijacking) felt no need to show restraint, saying, through the State Department: "The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost."
In a world of proportionality and full enforcement of the murder laws -- or even, rough justice-style "what goes around comes around" -- George Bush's men would not want to make that statement, since they (and Israel) are responsible for vastly more, and vastly more civilian, killings, don't have Mughniyeh's sometime excuse of responding to invasion, and don't want to start up their cars tomorrow morning and wind up blown to bits.
But that is not this world. This is mafia world. If you're big enough, you can whack guys.
It so happened that, hours before, another Palestinian man had used that mafia term as we wove through scrolls of barbed wire, checkpoints, walls, and Galil/M-16 toting Occupation men as Jewish settlers/occupiers zipped through the West Bank on ethnically/religiously segregated superhighways.
Two days before, a fairly typical day in Israeli politics, the lead front page headline in the Haaretz newspaper was "IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to step up Gaza assassinations," in response to homemade rockets from besieged, hungry, bombed Gaza that had recently wounded Israelis (for background on the siege and the disproportionate death tolls, see postings of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza, The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism," and January 6, 2008 "The Breaking of the Gaza Wall. Wise, Justified Political Violence.").
"The IDF needs to wipe out a neighborhood in Gaza," said the Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, "We need to target all those responsible for terrorism without asking who they are" -- suggesting a broad definition of "responsible" that encompasses those whose actions are unknown, but who do, at least, fit the criterion of being Palestinians living in Gaza. (Haaretz English Edition, February 11, 2008).
Dani Yatom, the former Shin Bet internal security chief, now a parliamentarian for what constitutes Israel's establishment left, the Labor Party, said on TV of blowing up the smaller killer Mughniyeh that "the free and democratic world today achieved a very important goal" -- suggesting that freedom and democracy do not have law and order (as opposed to whacking) as a prerequisite, which seems to undercut the whole US worldwide project of building up heavily-armed security forces, along with non-troublesome courts -- in places including occupied Palestine -- on the claimed premise that you can't have freedom and democracy until you've first established the rule of law.
The politics are pretty clear. The US Republicans want terrorism -- other people's -- on the US electoral front burner (see posting re. the just-announced 9/11 tribunals, February 11, 2008, "The Guantanamo Gambit. A Smart But Vulnerable Establishment. Tactical Options in US Politics."), and Israel's Olmert administration is still smarting from a new official report (the Winograd Commission) saying they lost the '06 Lebanon war with Hezbollah (and with the precision-carpet-bombed civilian populations of southern Leabanon, and southern Beirut), and are simultaneously facing a fierce Israeli public clamor to go in and kill more Gazans.
There's always a certain -- weak -- case to be made for just taking out a killer if nice, legal courts can't do it (its the kind of thing that leftist guerrilla/liberation movements, or the French Resistance, did all the time). That was basically the case -- apart from the weapons/ Al Qeada lies -- that the US made for taking out Saddam Hussein. But the weak case becomes dangerously unserious when the one proposing to do the ajusticiamiento (delivery of justice, as they used to say in rebel Central America), has, like, say, the US or Israeli leadership, killed and murdered far more prolifically than has the proposed target. Then, though you remove a smaller killer from the face of the earth, you make the bigger killer still stronger, thus making life even more dangerous for regular people who are still walking around.
Surprisingly enough, for a man based in the New York area -- an old mob stronghold and recently the fictional home of HBO's Tony Soprano -- Malcom Hoenlein, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations seemed to express surprise, at a Tuesday Jerusalem press conference, at his group's poll findings that American popular support for Israel is "broad" but "also thin, and most Americans see Israel as a dark and militaristic place."
Evidently they shouldn't. When an assassination car bomb explodes, it gives off a lot of light.
(For the Hoenlein press conference see Anshel Pfeffer, "Hoenlein: Obama's spirit of change could harm Israel," Haaretz, February 13, 2008; despite the headline, he wasn't criticizing Obama, who like all the big 3 candidates, is already pledged to the official US/Israeli government line, including on Gaza. He was merely fretting that "[t]here is a legitimate concern over the zeitgeist around the campaign... All the talk about change, but without defining that that change should be, is an opening for all kind of mischief.").
Allan Nairn can be reached through his blog.
By ALLAN NAIRN
I happened to learn about the car-bomb assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah commander, while talking to a Palestinian Fatah man who is a confidante of Mohammed Dahlan, who is famously reputed in the press to have been both a torturer and the CIA's man in Gaza, until the Hamas ousted him.
The Fatah / Dahlan man who imparted the assassination news hates Hamas with a passion -- he said that in last year's rival security forces showdown they grabbed and tortured him with knives for four hours (he was earlier tortured by the Israelis far longer, and worse, but views that as par for the course)-- and is no fan of Hezbollah, but he viewed the killing with irony. He said he was hearing that the Israelis were saying "we cleared the account with him (Mughniyeh)" (Palestinian Authority security forces, like those Dahlan ran, now have regular coordination meetings with their ostensible enemies, Israeli intelligence), yet he claimed that Mughniyeh's major killings had been more against other Arabs (eg. Saudi, Kuwait) than against Israelis.
The Israeli killing men are trying to contain their grins. The government issued a non-denial denial "Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add" -- i.e. they reject terror groups saying they were involved, but do not say that they were not involved.
The US, which had a $25 million bounty on Mughniyeh's head (he's implicated, in, among other things, the Lebanon Marine barracks bombing, the kidnap/ holding of AP reporter Terry Anderson, a TWA hijacking) felt no need to show restraint, saying, through the State Department: "The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost."
In a world of proportionality and full enforcement of the murder laws -- or even, rough justice-style "what goes around comes around" -- George Bush's men would not want to make that statement, since they (and Israel) are responsible for vastly more, and vastly more civilian, killings, don't have Mughniyeh's sometime excuse of responding to invasion, and don't want to start up their cars tomorrow morning and wind up blown to bits.
But that is not this world. This is mafia world. If you're big enough, you can whack guys.
It so happened that, hours before, another Palestinian man had used that mafia term as we wove through scrolls of barbed wire, checkpoints, walls, and Galil/M-16 toting Occupation men as Jewish settlers/occupiers zipped through the West Bank on ethnically/religiously segregated superhighways.
Two days before, a fairly typical day in Israeli politics, the lead front page headline in the Haaretz newspaper was "IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to step up Gaza assassinations," in response to homemade rockets from besieged, hungry, bombed Gaza that had recently wounded Israelis (for background on the siege and the disproportionate death tolls, see postings of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza, The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism," and January 6, 2008 "The Breaking of the Gaza Wall. Wise, Justified Political Violence.").
"The IDF needs to wipe out a neighborhood in Gaza," said the Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, "We need to target all those responsible for terrorism without asking who they are" -- suggesting a broad definition of "responsible" that encompasses those whose actions are unknown, but who do, at least, fit the criterion of being Palestinians living in Gaza. (Haaretz English Edition, February 11, 2008).
Dani Yatom, the former Shin Bet internal security chief, now a parliamentarian for what constitutes Israel's establishment left, the Labor Party, said on TV of blowing up the smaller killer Mughniyeh that "the free and democratic world today achieved a very important goal" -- suggesting that freedom and democracy do not have law and order (as opposed to whacking) as a prerequisite, which seems to undercut the whole US worldwide project of building up heavily-armed security forces, along with non-troublesome courts -- in places including occupied Palestine -- on the claimed premise that you can't have freedom and democracy until you've first established the rule of law.
The politics are pretty clear. The US Republicans want terrorism -- other people's -- on the US electoral front burner (see posting re. the just-announced 9/11 tribunals, February 11, 2008, "The Guantanamo Gambit. A Smart But Vulnerable Establishment. Tactical Options in US Politics."), and Israel's Olmert administration is still smarting from a new official report (the Winograd Commission) saying they lost the '06 Lebanon war with Hezbollah (and with the precision-carpet-bombed civilian populations of southern Leabanon, and southern Beirut), and are simultaneously facing a fierce Israeli public clamor to go in and kill more Gazans.
There's always a certain -- weak -- case to be made for just taking out a killer if nice, legal courts can't do it (its the kind of thing that leftist guerrilla/liberation movements, or the French Resistance, did all the time). That was basically the case -- apart from the weapons/ Al Qeada lies -- that the US made for taking out Saddam Hussein. But the weak case becomes dangerously unserious when the one proposing to do the ajusticiamiento (delivery of justice, as they used to say in rebel Central America), has, like, say, the US or Israeli leadership, killed and murdered far more prolifically than has the proposed target. Then, though you remove a smaller killer from the face of the earth, you make the bigger killer still stronger, thus making life even more dangerous for regular people who are still walking around.
Surprisingly enough, for a man based in the New York area -- an old mob stronghold and recently the fictional home of HBO's Tony Soprano -- Malcom Hoenlein, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations seemed to express surprise, at a Tuesday Jerusalem press conference, at his group's poll findings that American popular support for Israel is "broad" but "also thin, and most Americans see Israel as a dark and militaristic place."
Evidently they shouldn't. When an assassination car bomb explodes, it gives off a lot of light.
(For the Hoenlein press conference see Anshel Pfeffer, "Hoenlein: Obama's spirit of change could harm Israel," Haaretz, February 13, 2008; despite the headline, he wasn't criticizing Obama, who like all the big 3 candidates, is already pledged to the official US/Israeli government line, including on Gaza. He was merely fretting that "[t]here is a legitimate concern over the zeitgeist around the campaign... All the talk about change, but without defining that that change should be, is an opening for all kind of mischief.").
Allan Nairn can be reached through his blog.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Funny
iPod/iPhone Link
It is a take off of this powerful commercial put together by some average citizens.
iPod/iPhone Link
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
If I hear one more person say race card....
If I hear one more person talk about how Obama is playing the race card, for which he isn't, I am going to fucking kill them. Here, again, Sen. Clinton cries at an event. If you think that her tears are genuine then you don't remember the Clintons.
Here I am going to say it, if you cry in public you are not qualified to be President whether you are a lady or a gent. Just imagine on 9/11 had Bush been brought to tears, what the nation and the world would have said. Now Hillary cries when she talks about how much she cares about the country, what happens if something bad happens. Oh Clinton's supporters will say that she is tough, and that is why she voted to start a war with the Iraqi people. The thing is that you can't have it both ways. Either you cry or you keep your composure. At the risk of falling into a gender trap, she should not be crying on the trail in order to get votes. If you think she isn't that heartless, where the fuck have you been for the last 16 years.
Here I am going to say it, if you cry in public you are not qualified to be President whether you are a lady or a gent. Just imagine on 9/11 had Bush been brought to tears, what the nation and the world would have said. Now Hillary cries when she talks about how much she cares about the country, what happens if something bad happens. Oh Clinton's supporters will say that she is tough, and that is why she voted to start a war with the Iraqi people. The thing is that you can't have it both ways. Either you cry or you keep your composure. At the risk of falling into a gender trap, she should not be crying on the trail in order to get votes. If you think she isn't that heartless, where the fuck have you been for the last 16 years.
How old is this fucking guy?
Here is an interview with the bass player from one of the best bands around, NoMeansNo. In the interview he says he hopes that downloading music brings down Sony, EMI et al.
iPhone/iPod Link
iPhone/iPod Link
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Everyday
iPhone/iPod Link
84 New Elementary schools everyday? Instead everyday that 720 million goes to war contractors, ouch.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Stimulus package? That is what they are calling it.
Wow, I am going to get a three hundred dollar check from the government. What a great thing. The government is going to give me back 300 dollars that I paid them with the taxes on my wages as opposed to my income, of which I have none. I make no income. I trade my labor for dollars. There is no income but a trade of one to one. Still the government has decided that wages are to be taxed at a much higher rate than actual income. Even though it is called the “income tax” very few of us, the readers, earn any income at all. Yet we are still taxed. If it was truly an income tax then I would pay absolutely nothing because I earn no interest, capital gains or dividends.
So the idea of the stimulus package is to get money into the hands of income-tax payers, their term. They took thousands of dollars of my wages illegally and now want me to be excited that they are giving me some of my own money back. Of course, the whole idea is to “stimulate” the economy by having us wage slaves spend the 300 dollars on crap. The idea is that I will buy consumer goods, in turn giving more money to the wealthy elite, of which they will pay an income tax half of the tax I pay on my wages. Basically it is a sly way to transfer even more wealth to the already unethically rich. It is a bribe to ensure that none of us ask any questions about why the immorally rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes, since the people who own 95% should pay 95% instead of 65%, when they are the income earners and we are all just trading our labor, for no gain or income.
As if these last two administrations haven’t done enough to enrich the ruling elite. With Clinton cutting taxes on some of the richest people on the globe, who get their money off the labor of us, from 30 cents on the dollar to 22 cents on the dollar. Then Bush comes in and cuts it even more to 17 cents on the dollar. As we are all spending our 300 dollars, which works out to 6 dollars a week, make sure not to look behind the curtain.
Americans are so fucking stupid. Notice too that Clinton cut the taxes of the obscenely rich far more than Bush, but don't expect any Democrat to mention that, since Bush is the devil incarnate.
So the idea of the stimulus package is to get money into the hands of income-tax payers, their term. They took thousands of dollars of my wages illegally and now want me to be excited that they are giving me some of my own money back. Of course, the whole idea is to “stimulate” the economy by having us wage slaves spend the 300 dollars on crap. The idea is that I will buy consumer goods, in turn giving more money to the wealthy elite, of which they will pay an income tax half of the tax I pay on my wages. Basically it is a sly way to transfer even more wealth to the already unethically rich. It is a bribe to ensure that none of us ask any questions about why the immorally rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes, since the people who own 95% should pay 95% instead of 65%, when they are the income earners and we are all just trading our labor, for no gain or income.
As if these last two administrations haven’t done enough to enrich the ruling elite. With Clinton cutting taxes on some of the richest people on the globe, who get their money off the labor of us, from 30 cents on the dollar to 22 cents on the dollar. Then Bush comes in and cuts it even more to 17 cents on the dollar. As we are all spending our 300 dollars, which works out to 6 dollars a week, make sure not to look behind the curtain.
Americans are so fucking stupid. Notice too that Clinton cut the taxes of the obscenely rich far more than Bush, but don't expect any Democrat to mention that, since Bush is the devil incarnate.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Another Wall Comes Down
It has been reported that Hamas has been cutting through this wall for a while now. Then finally they blew it up and an estimated 350,000 Palestinians walked into Egypt to get basic needs like food and gasoline. I just love it when these fucking walls are destroyed. I will never forget the night the Berlin Wall came down, Oct 9th 1989. It was so amazing.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Wow!
Obama's skills as a speaker are enough to get my support. This is a long clip, 34 minutes, but it is worth it. It gets really good, around 17:30, when he starts to talk about hope.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Damn you Nevada!
I have found the end of our Democracy and it is the union of the Bush family and the Clinton family. For the last 20 years now, maybe even more considering the state of Reagan towards the end of his reign, our country has been ruled by two families, the Clintons and the Bushes. And now we are about to embark on another 8 years of Clinton/Bush rule, and no one seems to notice. Once the two families merge into a Clinton-Bush hyphenated family it is truly over for us all.
We had our chance in 2000 to break the grip of these two families on the country. Finally instead of a Clinton we had Albert Gore Jr., son of a powerful senator, running for the office. His opponent was of course the son of the powerful Congressman, CIA Chief, former Vice President and former President George Herbert Walker Bush. Unfortunately for us, Al Gore gave up and handed the election to a Bush, most likely understanding that as a non-Clinton he had no right to the throne. Better to sit by and wait for the Queen.
We had our chance in 2000 to break the grip of these two families on the country. Finally instead of a Clinton we had Albert Gore Jr., son of a powerful senator, running for the office. His opponent was of course the son of the powerful Congressman, CIA Chief, former Vice President and former President George Herbert Walker Bush. Unfortunately for us, Al Gore gave up and handed the election to a Bush, most likely understanding that as a non-Clinton he had no right to the throne. Better to sit by and wait for the Queen.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Hillary's alligator tears
Here is the clip of Hillary being brought to tears over her love of america(enough love to sponsor a bill outlawing flag burning). What fake pandering, the fact that people bought it speaks in volumes.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
I love YouTube!
Here is a video I found from 1979 of Patti Smith on some kids show. Patti is one of the coolest chicks around. I wish there were more people like her out there. SHe sings a song that any Patti Smith fan would be shocked by.
Then there are Bjork and P.J. Harvey who are pretty fucking cool.
To top it off, Nina Simone. A woman so cool she moved away from America, to France, because she was sick of racism.
Then there are Bjork and P.J. Harvey who are pretty fucking cool.
To top it off, Nina Simone. A woman so cool she moved away from America, to France, because she was sick of racism.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Pete Seeger is so damn cool
You may have heard this one recently.
Ah, I wish people cared like this today, oh well. I guess modern entertainment has pacified everyone.
Ah, I wish people cared like this today, oh well. I guess modern entertainment has pacified everyone.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Thursday, January 03, 2008
An attempt at a discussion
Everyone is racist, plain and simple, and if you claim you are not that shows that you are. That being said, I have been wondering lately about racism and its degrees. How much racism is acceptable, which kinds are okay, are any kinds okay, does it matter who is saying the racist remarks or is it all unacceptable from anyone?
All one has to do is take a look at America and you will find racism everywhere. Actually in America you are supposed to be anti-Muslim or Arab, since people are too ignorant to truly understand the distinctions. If you are a member of the “right” then part of your platform is based on racism towards Hispanics. Both of these forms of racism are deemed acceptable by a large percentage of the American population. If you don’t hold similar views, about Mexicans or Muslims, then some people see you as not American or damn near a traitor. Is their any basis that makes these sentiments acceptable? Is what I see as racism towards Hispanics really just American nationalism, and if so, is nationalism as bad as racism? Is the racism towards Muslims due to the attacks on America? Most likely, it helped. Is the use of racial profiling acceptable towards Muslims in airport but not black guys in rich white neighborhoods? Are they the same?
Are some ethnicities, or “races”, allowed to be racist towards others due to historical injustices? Is it okay for Native Americans to be racist towards the “white man” due to our genocide? Are African Americans allowed to be racist towards white people as a result of slavery or just white Americans? Since no group has been persecuted to the level of the Jews are they allowed to be racist towards just about everyone else? Is there some scale of historical injustice that needs to be made so we can keep track of everyone’s position or is that even relevant?
Are certain words worse then others? Is nigger worse than spic? Is kike worse then A-rab? If so why?
Does one’s position in society make a difference? Are poor people allowed to be racist and the middle class not? Does education and upbringing factor in? Is there any acceptable level of racism?
Shit, one point I forgot. Is racism worse than homophobia, for lack of a better term? Is it okay for someone to truly call people slurs, about the sexuality they were born with, but not if they deal with their skin color? Isn’t anti-gay sentiment the same as racism? If so why is it acceptable? Do we need to add homosexuals to the scale of historical injustices to see where they fit first? Why do people gasp at nigger but not fag?
Just some thoughts that have been rolling around inside my head lately. If anyone would like to take the time to respond to any of these questions I would greatly appreciate it.
All one has to do is take a look at America and you will find racism everywhere. Actually in America you are supposed to be anti-Muslim or Arab, since people are too ignorant to truly understand the distinctions. If you are a member of the “right” then part of your platform is based on racism towards Hispanics. Both of these forms of racism are deemed acceptable by a large percentage of the American population. If you don’t hold similar views, about Mexicans or Muslims, then some people see you as not American or damn near a traitor. Is their any basis that makes these sentiments acceptable? Is what I see as racism towards Hispanics really just American nationalism, and if so, is nationalism as bad as racism? Is the racism towards Muslims due to the attacks on America? Most likely, it helped. Is the use of racial profiling acceptable towards Muslims in airport but not black guys in rich white neighborhoods? Are they the same?
Are some ethnicities, or “races”, allowed to be racist towards others due to historical injustices? Is it okay for Native Americans to be racist towards the “white man” due to our genocide? Are African Americans allowed to be racist towards white people as a result of slavery or just white Americans? Since no group has been persecuted to the level of the Jews are they allowed to be racist towards just about everyone else? Is there some scale of historical injustice that needs to be made so we can keep track of everyone’s position or is that even relevant?
Are certain words worse then others? Is nigger worse than spic? Is kike worse then A-rab? If so why?
Does one’s position in society make a difference? Are poor people allowed to be racist and the middle class not? Does education and upbringing factor in? Is there any acceptable level of racism?
Shit, one point I forgot. Is racism worse than homophobia, for lack of a better term? Is it okay for someone to truly call people slurs, about the sexuality they were born with, but not if they deal with their skin color? Isn’t anti-gay sentiment the same as racism? If so why is it acceptable? Do we need to add homosexuals to the scale of historical injustices to see where they fit first? Why do people gasp at nigger but not fag?
Just some thoughts that have been rolling around inside my head lately. If anyone would like to take the time to respond to any of these questions I would greatly appreciate it.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
The Day Before Iowa
Listening to Barak Obama I have come to discover that his rhetoric is the same as horoscopes. A lot of talk of vague terms like change, progress, or difference without saying what those terms mean.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Why I Plan to Boycott the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.
It was brought to my attention that the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are going to be going back on air without their writers. In other words they are crossing the picket lines and will become scabs. How can it be that supposedly left leaning artists could abandon their fellow artists and side with Westinghouse, part of the Military Industrial Complex? Maybe they have figured that labor is worthless today. I think though if either Mr. Stewart or Mr. Colbert looked around they may see that everything around them was created with labor.
The labor dispute between the studios, General Electric, Disney, Westinghouse, and Fox, and the writers is over revenue. At the moment the writers get no royalties from the shows that their networks air over the Internet, even though the studios are receiving ad revenue from the advertisers. The writers argue that if their work is bringing in money then why don’t they get a cut.
The major companies argue that it is really impossible to figure out any dollar amounts for online content. While at the same time, Westinghouse, owner of CBSViacom, is suing Google for one billion dollars for allowing users of YouTube to post CBSViacom’s content on their site. So again it looks as if the powerful want it both ways. When the hell will people wake up to this phenomenon?
I find it really sad that these two would jump back on air so quickly and even more shocking is that they would cross the picket lines. How can they claim any democratic credentials anymore, and I use a small “d” not a “D” on purpose. It is totally possible that I am wrong about this. It could be that the two of them are going to use their pulpits to lambaste the networks, which pay them, and show support for the writers. Unfortunately if that is the case someone will have to tell me because I will not be watching. I expect this kind of shit from Jay Leno but Stewart and Colbert, they know better.
The labor dispute between the studios, General Electric, Disney, Westinghouse, and Fox, and the writers is over revenue. At the moment the writers get no royalties from the shows that their networks air over the Internet, even though the studios are receiving ad revenue from the advertisers. The writers argue that if their work is bringing in money then why don’t they get a cut.
The major companies argue that it is really impossible to figure out any dollar amounts for online content. While at the same time, Westinghouse, owner of CBSViacom, is suing Google for one billion dollars for allowing users of YouTube to post CBSViacom’s content on their site. So again it looks as if the powerful want it both ways. When the hell will people wake up to this phenomenon?
I find it really sad that these two would jump back on air so quickly and even more shocking is that they would cross the picket lines. How can they claim any democratic credentials anymore, and I use a small “d” not a “D” on purpose. It is totally possible that I am wrong about this. It could be that the two of them are going to use their pulpits to lambaste the networks, which pay them, and show support for the writers. Unfortunately if that is the case someone will have to tell me because I will not be watching. I expect this kind of shit from Jay Leno but Stewart and Colbert, they know better.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
A little music and reading for Xmas
Here is a great essay by the philosopher Peter Singer. I figured that it was very fitting for Xmas. Of course, it may make you feel bad.
The Singer Solution to World Poverty
Peter Singer
The New York Times Magazine, September 5, 1999
Friday, December 21, 2007
Wow these guys are paranoid
Last night I came across an article on one of my favorite web sites. IT was an essay on 9/11 and the Bush Administration's complicity in the attacks. I decided to add my two cents worth in the comment section and then things get wacky. At one point the other commentators questioned if I worked for the US GOvernment and was there just to spread disinformation. Then they get anti-semitic.
Here's the thread if you are interested. I am "InStride".
Here's the thread if you are interested. I am "InStride".
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Enough Police State
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Police used chemical spray and stun guns Thursday as dozens of protesters seeking to halt the demolition of 4,500 public housing units tried to force their way through an iron gate at City Hall.
One woman was sprayed with chemicals and dragged from the gates. She was taken away on a stretcher by emergency officials. Before that, the woman was seen pouring water from a bottle into her eyes and weeping.
One woman was sprayed with chemicals and dragged from the gates. She was taken away on a stretcher by emergency officials. Before that, the woman was seen pouring water from a bottle into her eyes and weeping.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Orchestra Prevented from Entering Gaza to Hold Solidarity Concert in Ramallah
Please circulate widely; Let the whole world know how these Nazis carry on
Maestro Daniel Barenboim expresses deep dismay at discrimination against Palestinian musician, and will hold press conference in Berlin tomorrow in protest. For more information, please contact Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Tel: 00491-792160544.
12.16.2007 | AlKamandjati.com
Ramallah, 16-12-07: An international orchestra refused to perform in Gaza today after its sole Palestinian member, violinist Ramzi Aburedwan, was prevented from entering the Strip by the Israeli authorities and threatened with arrest, despite the fact that all 20 members of the orchestra – including Aburedwan - had secured prior coordination from the Israeli authorities via the General Consulate of France in Jerusalem to enter Gaza.
The orchestra had been due to perform as part of a Baroque Music Festival which is taking place throughout Palestine and Israel, supported by the Barenboim-Said Foundation, the General Consulate of France in Jerusalem, the A.M. Qattan Foundation, and the Goethe Institute of Ramallah.
The tour specifically scheduled a performance in the Strip to give ordinary Gazans some respite from the grinding, daily suffering they face because of Israeli measures of collective punishment and isolation, including fuel and electricity cuts and crippling border closures, which have caused massive levels of poverty and unemployment, and continued Israeli military attacks.
When the orchestra arrived at the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing, all of its international members were told they could pass except Aburedwan, who was told that he had travelled to the crossing illegally despite possessing all the necessary documentation. The orchestra refused to enter Gaza without Aburedwan. After being detained at Erez for almost seven hours, Aburedwan was taken to an Israeli police station in Sderot accompanied by his fellow musicians, where he was held for a further two hours.
All members of the orchestra have now returned to Ramallah and intend to hold a concert in solidarity with Gaza from Ramallah. The concert will take place on Monday 17 December at 13:00, at the Al Kamandjâti Association in Ramallah's Old City. All members of the press and general public are invited to attend.
Maestro Daniel Barenboim, one of the backers of the Festival, expressed his deep dismay at this blatant discrimination against a Palestinian musician, which prevented the orchestra from performing this vital humanitarian act for the people of Gaza. To express his protest, Maestro Barenboim will hold a press conference in Berlin on Monday 17 December at 12:00, where he will be available to respond to comments and requests for information. All members of the international press are invited to attend.
For more information, please contact Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Tel: 00491-792160544.
For more information on Ramzi Aburedwan and the Al Kamandjati Association, please visit: www.alkamandjati.com.
Maestro Daniel Barenboim expresses deep dismay at discrimination against Palestinian musician, and will hold press conference in Berlin tomorrow in protest. For more information, please contact Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Tel: 00491-792160544.
12.16.2007 | AlKamandjati.com
Ramallah, 16-12-07: An international orchestra refused to perform in Gaza today after its sole Palestinian member, violinist Ramzi Aburedwan, was prevented from entering the Strip by the Israeli authorities and threatened with arrest, despite the fact that all 20 members of the orchestra – including Aburedwan - had secured prior coordination from the Israeli authorities via the General Consulate of France in Jerusalem to enter Gaza.
The orchestra had been due to perform as part of a Baroque Music Festival which is taking place throughout Palestine and Israel, supported by the Barenboim-Said Foundation, the General Consulate of France in Jerusalem, the A.M. Qattan Foundation, and the Goethe Institute of Ramallah.
The tour specifically scheduled a performance in the Strip to give ordinary Gazans some respite from the grinding, daily suffering they face because of Israeli measures of collective punishment and isolation, including fuel and electricity cuts and crippling border closures, which have caused massive levels of poverty and unemployment, and continued Israeli military attacks.
When the orchestra arrived at the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing, all of its international members were told they could pass except Aburedwan, who was told that he had travelled to the crossing illegally despite possessing all the necessary documentation. The orchestra refused to enter Gaza without Aburedwan. After being detained at Erez for almost seven hours, Aburedwan was taken to an Israeli police station in Sderot accompanied by his fellow musicians, where he was held for a further two hours.
All members of the orchestra have now returned to Ramallah and intend to hold a concert in solidarity with Gaza from Ramallah. The concert will take place on Monday 17 December at 13:00, at the Al Kamandjâti Association in Ramallah's Old City. All members of the press and general public are invited to attend.
Maestro Daniel Barenboim, one of the backers of the Festival, expressed his deep dismay at this blatant discrimination against a Palestinian musician, which prevented the orchestra from performing this vital humanitarian act for the people of Gaza. To express his protest, Maestro Barenboim will hold a press conference in Berlin on Monday 17 December at 12:00, where he will be available to respond to comments and requests for information. All members of the international press are invited to attend.
For more information, please contact Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Tel: 00491-792160544.
For more information on Ramzi Aburedwan and the Al Kamandjati Association, please visit: www.alkamandjati.com.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Some Words of Wisdom from other people
Chomsky on Looting:
"As to the question of looting, I myself wouldn't regard that as violence. I don't see why it's more violent for a person to go into a store and take what's there than it is for a person who has money that was achieved by violent methods to go into the store and take what's there by handing over the money. I think one can give a good argument that looting isn't violence at all. In a sense, most of us are looters, or at any rate we are benefiting from others' looting."
H.L. Mencken:
"A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there."
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."
"Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time."
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
Lord Bertrand Russell:
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence"
"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths."
"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."
John Dewey:
"Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy."
"Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis."
Isaiah Berlin:
"Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs."
"Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions."
ALbert Camus:
"After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion"
"At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face."
"In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."
Immanuel Kant:
"Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world."
"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
"In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so."
Diogenes of Sinope:
"In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face."
"Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?"
"There is only a finger's difference between a wise man and a fool."
Ludwig Wittgenstein:
"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself."
"The face is the soul of the body."
"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for."
"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."
Just some thoughts by people with larger brains then me.
-justin
"As to the question of looting, I myself wouldn't regard that as violence. I don't see why it's more violent for a person to go into a store and take what's there than it is for a person who has money that was achieved by violent methods to go into the store and take what's there by handing over the money. I think one can give a good argument that looting isn't violence at all. In a sense, most of us are looters, or at any rate we are benefiting from others' looting."
H.L. Mencken:
"A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there."
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."
"Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time."
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
Lord Bertrand Russell:
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence"
"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths."
"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."
John Dewey:
"Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy."
"Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis."
Isaiah Berlin:
"Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs."
"Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions."
ALbert Camus:
"After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion"
"At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face."
"In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."
Immanuel Kant:
"Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world."
"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
"In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so."
Diogenes of Sinope:
"In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face."
"Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?"
"There is only a finger's difference between a wise man and a fool."
Ludwig Wittgenstein:
"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself."
"The face is the soul of the body."
"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for."
"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."
Just some thoughts by people with larger brains then me.
-justin
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Catching Mitt
So Mitt Romney gave a speech on religion in an attempt to convince one group of wacko Christians, the Evangelicals, that his absurd religion, Mormonism, isn’t that far from theirs. Here is just a selection of choice quotes from Mitt’s speech, with a little rebuttal.
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”
Actually if one looks at history there are many examples of how incredibly false this statement is. For instance, persecution is one of religion’s greatest friends. On top of that, religions are mostly based on control, hence sin.
“A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.”
This is begging the question, at least to an atheist.
"As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America's 'political religion' – the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God.”
I wish I had the time to go back and locate that quote by Lincoln to understand its context because I read it differently. Does God really care about the Constitution, Mitt?
“Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.”
That’s all you people are, who do you think you are kidding?
“But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God.”
Can you really blame us?
“It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.”
Worshipping secularism? WTF?
"We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word”
“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
"The consequence of our common humanity is our responsibility to one another, to our fellow Americans foremost, but also to every child of God.”
Again, doesn’t our “common humanity” overlook lines drawn in the sand?
"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government. No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty.”
Just go ahead and start reading the Old Testament because you will find that God does not give his humans liberty but nonsensical laws about eating shellfish and how many shekels of gold must make up each curtain rod in the tabernac
“America must never falter in holding high the banner of freedom”
I read recently that the umbilical cord of kings were saved and used as a way to rally the people, they would have parades and wave them in the streets, and was most likely the precursor to modern day flags.
“It was in Philadelphia that our founding fathers defined a revolutionary vision of liberty, grounded on self-evident truths about the equality of all, and the inalienable rights with which each is endowed by his Creator.”
Ya, the equality of all white-male property owners.
"Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me”
So if you haven’t knelt in prayer to the Almighty, the one, the only, GOD, then you are no ally of his. Ouch!
"In that spirit, let us give thanks to the divine 'author of liberty.”
The bible is a book telling people what not to do, not a book granting freedom.
It is sad that in 2007 our leaders feel the need to show how much they love Jesus. I am still waiting for the backlash against all of this. Maybe America will have a mini-Enlightenment since our mini-Crusades aren’t working so well.
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”
Actually if one looks at history there are many examples of how incredibly false this statement is. For instance, persecution is one of religion’s greatest friends. On top of that, religions are mostly based on control, hence sin.
“A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.”
This is begging the question, at least to an atheist.
"As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America's 'political religion' – the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God.”
I wish I had the time to go back and locate that quote by Lincoln to understand its context because I read it differently. Does God really care about the Constitution, Mitt?
“Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.”
That’s all you people are, who do you think you are kidding?
“But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God.”
Can you really blame us?
“It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.”
Worshipping secularism? WTF?
"We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word”
“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
"The consequence of our common humanity is our responsibility to one another, to our fellow Americans foremost, but also to every child of God.”
Again, doesn’t our “common humanity” overlook lines drawn in the sand?
"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government. No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty.”
Just go ahead and start reading the Old Testament because you will find that God does not give his humans liberty but nonsensical laws about eating shellfish and how many shekels of gold must make up each curtain rod in the tabernac
“America must never falter in holding high the banner of freedom”
I read recently that the umbilical cord of kings were saved and used as a way to rally the people, they would have parades and wave them in the streets, and was most likely the precursor to modern day flags.
“It was in Philadelphia that our founding fathers defined a revolutionary vision of liberty, grounded on self-evident truths about the equality of all, and the inalienable rights with which each is endowed by his Creator.”
Ya, the equality of all white-male property owners.
"Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me”
So if you haven’t knelt in prayer to the Almighty, the one, the only, GOD, then you are no ally of his. Ouch!
"In that spirit, let us give thanks to the divine 'author of liberty.”
The bible is a book telling people what not to do, not a book granting freedom.
It is sad that in 2007 our leaders feel the need to show how much they love Jesus. I am still waiting for the backlash against all of this. Maybe America will have a mini-Enlightenment since our mini-Crusades aren’t working so well.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Russell's Last Essay
The time has come to review my life as a whole, and to ask whether it has served any useful purpose or has been wholly concerned in futility. Unfortunately, no answer is possible for anyone who does not know the future. Modern weapons make it practically certain that the next serious war will exterminate the human race. This is admitted by all competent authorities, and I shall not waste time in proving it. Any man who cares what the future may have in store therefore has to choose between nothingness and conciliation, not once, but throughout future ages until the sun grows cold.
Unfortunately, our politicians are not accustomed to such a choice. However hard they try, their minds inevitably slide back to the courtroom and the criminal world. If, out of kindness, the last man foresees the murder of the last man but one, the whole law-enforcement campaign imagines all the apparatus of police, Scotland Yard, judges and wigs ready to catch and punish him. But this is not how the scene will be. There will be first the death of nearly all the inhabitants of New York or London or Peking or Tokyo, then a gradual extension of deaths to the country, then famine due to failure of trade, and at last gasping, horrifying lonely death in the mountains, and then eternal silence.
If the Great Powers continue their present policies, some such end as this is inevitable. When two or more Powers disagree, what can they do? A can yield to B, or B can yield to A, or they can reach a compromise, or they can fight. If either yields, it is thought pusillanimous: either it loses caste, or, next time, it must fight; or it must secure an ally. Since the number of States is finite, this process must soon come to an end. We have seen all the steps in this development since the end of the Second War. Consider what happened in the Cuba crisis. Both sides were willing to fight, but at the last possible moment Khrushchev's nerve failed and he allowed the world to live till the next crisis. But it turned out that Russia would have preferred death, and Khrushchev fell.
Can we count on this always happening?
What is the present system?
When there is a quarrel, a conference is summoned, each side debates, they reach two compromises, one favoured by one side, the other by the other. If each contains disarmament clauses, each is aware that they may be infringed. Each considers the tiniest chance of infringement a greater misfortune than the end of the human race. And so nothing is done. The powers must learn that peace is the paramount interest of everybody. To cause this to be realized by governments should be the supreme aim.
What has been achieved towards this end, and what have I personally contributed?
Publicly, in the relations between states, very little, but still something. Russia has expressed willingness to transform NATO by joining it; but China is a new threat. The Vietnam war seems likely to end in negotiation. Generally, the powers (except the U.S.) show a reluctance to go to war. France is uncertain, but leaves room for hope. At any rate, the stark opposition of Communist and non-Communist is breaking down. If peace can be preserved for the next 10 years, it will be possible to hope.
What can private persons do meanwhile? They can agitate, by pointing out the effects of modern war and the danger of the extinction of Man. They can teach men not to hate peoples other than their own, or to cause themselves to be hated. They can value, and cause others to value, what Man has achieved in art and science. They can emphasize the superiority of co-operation to competition.
Finally, have I done anything to further such ends?
Something perhaps, but sadly little in view of the magnitude of the evil. Some few people in England and the U.S.A. I have encouraged in the expression of liberal views, or have terrified with the knowledge of what modern weapons can do. It is not much, but if everybody did as much this Earth would soon be a paradise. Consider for a moment what our planet is and what it might be. At present, for most, there is toil and hunger, constant danger, more hatred than love. There could be a happy world, where co-operation was more in evidence than competition, and monotonous work is done by machines, where what is lovely in nature is not destroyed to make room for hideous machines whose sole business is to kill, and where to promote joy is more respected than to produce mountains of corpses. Do not say this is impossible: it is not. It waits only for men to desire it more than the infliction of torture.
There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him loose to spread joy everywhere.
Unfortunately, our politicians are not accustomed to such a choice. However hard they try, their minds inevitably slide back to the courtroom and the criminal world. If, out of kindness, the last man foresees the murder of the last man but one, the whole law-enforcement campaign imagines all the apparatus of police, Scotland Yard, judges and wigs ready to catch and punish him. But this is not how the scene will be. There will be first the death of nearly all the inhabitants of New York or London or Peking or Tokyo, then a gradual extension of deaths to the country, then famine due to failure of trade, and at last gasping, horrifying lonely death in the mountains, and then eternal silence.
If the Great Powers continue their present policies, some such end as this is inevitable. When two or more Powers disagree, what can they do? A can yield to B, or B can yield to A, or they can reach a compromise, or they can fight. If either yields, it is thought pusillanimous: either it loses caste, or, next time, it must fight; or it must secure an ally. Since the number of States is finite, this process must soon come to an end. We have seen all the steps in this development since the end of the Second War. Consider what happened in the Cuba crisis. Both sides were willing to fight, but at the last possible moment Khrushchev's nerve failed and he allowed the world to live till the next crisis. But it turned out that Russia would have preferred death, and Khrushchev fell.
Can we count on this always happening?
What is the present system?
When there is a quarrel, a conference is summoned, each side debates, they reach two compromises, one favoured by one side, the other by the other. If each contains disarmament clauses, each is aware that they may be infringed. Each considers the tiniest chance of infringement a greater misfortune than the end of the human race. And so nothing is done. The powers must learn that peace is the paramount interest of everybody. To cause this to be realized by governments should be the supreme aim.
What has been achieved towards this end, and what have I personally contributed?
Publicly, in the relations between states, very little, but still something. Russia has expressed willingness to transform NATO by joining it; but China is a new threat. The Vietnam war seems likely to end in negotiation. Generally, the powers (except the U.S.) show a reluctance to go to war. France is uncertain, but leaves room for hope. At any rate, the stark opposition of Communist and non-Communist is breaking down. If peace can be preserved for the next 10 years, it will be possible to hope.
What can private persons do meanwhile? They can agitate, by pointing out the effects of modern war and the danger of the extinction of Man. They can teach men not to hate peoples other than their own, or to cause themselves to be hated. They can value, and cause others to value, what Man has achieved in art and science. They can emphasize the superiority of co-operation to competition.
Finally, have I done anything to further such ends?
Something perhaps, but sadly little in view of the magnitude of the evil. Some few people in England and the U.S.A. I have encouraged in the expression of liberal views, or have terrified with the knowledge of what modern weapons can do. It is not much, but if everybody did as much this Earth would soon be a paradise. Consider for a moment what our planet is and what it might be. At present, for most, there is toil and hunger, constant danger, more hatred than love. There could be a happy world, where co-operation was more in evidence than competition, and monotonous work is done by machines, where what is lovely in nature is not destroyed to make room for hideous machines whose sole business is to kill, and where to promote joy is more respected than to produce mountains of corpses. Do not say this is impossible: it is not. It waits only for men to desire it more than the infliction of torture.
There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him loose to spread joy everywhere.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Thursday, December 06, 2007
A little music and a little Iran.
I don't know why but this song has me mesmerized.
No nukes in Iran? What the fuck? Wait a second, hasn’t the Bush administration claimed for years that Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons program? But now the new National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, comes out and says that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago. That would be 2003, two years after Bush labeled Iran, and because it is a “democracy”, all its people, part of the Axis Of Evil. How can it be that we have had four years of bellicose saber rattling, not too mention all the claims made by Bush and Cheney about their supposed on-going weapons development, when they knew all along there was no program. I think this shows a pattern. Too bad we are the United States of Amnesia.
My conspiracy mind says this, could it be that the intelligence agencies, after being thrown under the bus by Cheney, threatened to go public with this information forcing Bush to release it or suffer a huge attack by career agents. Basically, once bitten, twice shy.
No nukes in Iran? What the fuck? Wait a second, hasn’t the Bush administration claimed for years that Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons program? But now the new National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, comes out and says that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago. That would be 2003, two years after Bush labeled Iran, and because it is a “democracy”, all its people, part of the Axis Of Evil. How can it be that we have had four years of bellicose saber rattling, not too mention all the claims made by Bush and Cheney about their supposed on-going weapons development, when they knew all along there was no program. I think this shows a pattern. Too bad we are the United States of Amnesia.
My conspiracy mind says this, could it be that the intelligence agencies, after being thrown under the bus by Cheney, threatened to go public with this information forcing Bush to release it or suffer a huge attack by career agents. Basically, once bitten, twice shy.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Demands of a thief
"I really wish America had a press corp like Israel."
-Justin
11.25.2007 |Haaretz
By Gideon Levy
The public discourse in Israel has momentarily awoken from its slumber. "To give or not to give," that is the Shakespearean question - "to make concessions" or "not to make concessions." It is good that initial signs of life in the Israeli public have emerged. It was worth going to Annapolis if only for this reason - but this discourse is baseless and distorted. Israel is not being asked "to give" anything to the Palestinians; it is only being asked to return - to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity. This is the primary core issue, the only one worthy of the title, and no one talks about it anymore.
No one is talking about morality anymore. Justice is also an archaic concept, a taboo that has deliberately been erased from all negotiations. Two and a half million people - farmers, merchants, lawyers, drivers, daydreaming teenage girls, love-smitten men, old people, women, children and combatants using violent means for a just cause - have all been living under a brutal boot for 40 years. Meanwhile, in our cafes and living rooms the conversation is over giving or not giving.
Lawyers, philosophers, writers, lecturers, intellectuals and rabbis, who are looked upon for basic knowledge about moral precepts, participate in this distorted discourse. What will they tell their children - after the occupation finally becomes a nightmare of the past - about the period in which they wielded influence? What will they say about their role in this? Israeli students stand at checkpoints as part of their army reserve duty, brutally deciding the fate of people, and then some rush off to lectures on ethics at university, forgetting what they did the previous day and what is being done in their names every single day. Intellectuals publish petitions, "to make concessions" or "not to make concessions," diverting attention from the core issue. There are stormy debates about corruption - whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is corrupt and how the Supreme Court is being undermined. But there is no discussion of the ultimate question: Isn't the occupation the greatest and most terrible corruption to have taken root here, overshadowing everything else?
Security officials are terrified about what would happen if we removed a checkpoint or released prisoners, like the whites in South Africa who whipped up a frenzy of fear about the "great slaughter" that would ensue if blacks were granted their rights. But these are not legitimate questions: The incarceration must be ended and the myriad of political prisoners should be released unconditionally. Just as a thief cannot present demands - neither preconditions nor any other terms - to the owner of the property he has robbed, Israel cannot present demands to the other side as long as the situation remains as it is.
Security? We must defend ourselves by defensive means. Those who do not believe that the only security we will enjoy will come from ending the occupation and from peace can entrench themselves in the army, and behind walls and fences. But we have no right to do what we are doing: Just as no one would conceive of killing the residents of an entire neighborhood, to harass and incarcerate it because of a few criminals living there, there is no justification for abusing an entire people in the name of our security. The question of whether ending the occupation would threaten or strengthen Israel's security is irrelevant. There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice.
No one will discuss this at Annapolis. Even if the real core issues were raised, they would focus on secondary questions - borders, Jerusalem and even refugees. But that would be escaping the main issue. After 40 years, one might have expected that the real core issue would finally be raised for honest and bold discussion: Does Israel have the moral right to continue the occupation? The world should have asked this long ago. The Palestinians should have focused only on this. And above all, we, who bear the guilt, should have been terribly troubled by the answer to this question.
-Justin
11.25.2007 |Haaretz
By Gideon Levy
The public discourse in Israel has momentarily awoken from its slumber. "To give or not to give," that is the Shakespearean question - "to make concessions" or "not to make concessions." It is good that initial signs of life in the Israeli public have emerged. It was worth going to Annapolis if only for this reason - but this discourse is baseless and distorted. Israel is not being asked "to give" anything to the Palestinians; it is only being asked to return - to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity. This is the primary core issue, the only one worthy of the title, and no one talks about it anymore.
No one is talking about morality anymore. Justice is also an archaic concept, a taboo that has deliberately been erased from all negotiations. Two and a half million people - farmers, merchants, lawyers, drivers, daydreaming teenage girls, love-smitten men, old people, women, children and combatants using violent means for a just cause - have all been living under a brutal boot for 40 years. Meanwhile, in our cafes and living rooms the conversation is over giving or not giving.
Lawyers, philosophers, writers, lecturers, intellectuals and rabbis, who are looked upon for basic knowledge about moral precepts, participate in this distorted discourse. What will they tell their children - after the occupation finally becomes a nightmare of the past - about the period in which they wielded influence? What will they say about their role in this? Israeli students stand at checkpoints as part of their army reserve duty, brutally deciding the fate of people, and then some rush off to lectures on ethics at university, forgetting what they did the previous day and what is being done in their names every single day. Intellectuals publish petitions, "to make concessions" or "not to make concessions," diverting attention from the core issue. There are stormy debates about corruption - whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is corrupt and how the Supreme Court is being undermined. But there is no discussion of the ultimate question: Isn't the occupation the greatest and most terrible corruption to have taken root here, overshadowing everything else?
Security officials are terrified about what would happen if we removed a checkpoint or released prisoners, like the whites in South Africa who whipped up a frenzy of fear about the "great slaughter" that would ensue if blacks were granted their rights. But these are not legitimate questions: The incarceration must be ended and the myriad of political prisoners should be released unconditionally. Just as a thief cannot present demands - neither preconditions nor any other terms - to the owner of the property he has robbed, Israel cannot present demands to the other side as long as the situation remains as it is.
Security? We must defend ourselves by defensive means. Those who do not believe that the only security we will enjoy will come from ending the occupation and from peace can entrench themselves in the army, and behind walls and fences. But we have no right to do what we are doing: Just as no one would conceive of killing the residents of an entire neighborhood, to harass and incarcerate it because of a few criminals living there, there is no justification for abusing an entire people in the name of our security. The question of whether ending the occupation would threaten or strengthen Israel's security is irrelevant. There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice.
No one will discuss this at Annapolis. Even if the real core issues were raised, they would focus on secondary questions - borders, Jerusalem and even refugees. But that would be escaping the main issue. After 40 years, one might have expected that the real core issue would finally be raised for honest and bold discussion: Does Israel have the moral right to continue the occupation? The world should have asked this long ago. The Palestinians should have focused only on this. And above all, we, who bear the guilt, should have been terribly troubled by the answer to this question.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Quick thought
America ended up with George W. Bush because of name recognition. Now we are going to end up with Hillary.
If Our Friends Do It, It Is Not Genocide
CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
21 Corporate Crime Reporter 45, November 13, 2007
The Genocide Prevention Task Force was unveiled at the National Press Club this morning.
The task force is being co-chair by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen.
It's being convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace.
In addition to Cohen and Albright, its members include: John Danforth, Tom Daschle, Stuart Eizenstat, Michael Gerson, Dan Glickman, Jack Kemp, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, Tom Pickering, Julia Taft, Vin Weber, and Anthony Zinni. "The world agrees that genocide is unacceptable and yet genocide and mass killings continue," Albright said. "Our challenge is to match words to deeds and stop allowing the unacceptable. That task – simple on the surface – is in fact one of the most persistent puzzles of our times. We have a duty to find the answer before the vow of ‘never again' is once again betrayed."
"We are convinced that the U.S. government can and must do better in preventing genocide – a crime that threatens not only our values but our national interests," Cohen said.
But after the opening remarks, Cohen and Albright hit a buzz saw of skeptical questioning from reporters in the First Amendment Room.
"How do you reconcile your work in trying to build a moral American consensus against genocide when just very recently each of you signed letters urging America not to recognize the Armenian genocide?" a reporter asked Cohen and Albright.
"This mission is about the future," Albright answered. "We want to look at ways to try and prevent genocide and mass killing. That is the purpose of this task force. The former Secretaries of State recognized that terrible things happened to the Armenians and tragedies. The letter was primarily about whether this was the appropriate time to raise the issue."
"The fact is that all of us who signed were concerned about the level of killings and the human suffering that took place between 1915 and 1923," Cohen said. "There was also a very deliberate decision to say that we are engaged in warfare at the moment. We have our sons and daughters who are at risk. And we felt that to have the resolution brought might result in reactions on the part of the Turkish government that could place our sons and daughters in greater jeopardy. It was a very practical decision that was made. This was not to say that we overlooked what took place in the past. We are saying – at this point forward, what do we do? How do we marshal public opinion? How do we marshal political action? How do we generate the will to take action in a society that has been reluctant to do so in the past? It involves multiple levels of complexity."
"If we are saying that this isn't the right time to acknowledge this genocide, does that mean that you are arguing that for political expedience purposes, we are not going to be taking action on nor should we take action on future genocides because of what are perceived to be U.S. interests?" another reporter asked.
"We are saying there are no absolutes in this," Cohen answered. "We are going to try and set forth a set of principles that will serve as a guide. And hopefully that guide will allow political leadership in this country and elsewhere. This is not something where the United States is advocating unilateral action. We are talking about the United States taking a lead to help shape public opinion – certainly domestically but also internationally. And this will involve multiple considerations, multiple political factors that have to be taken into account. We hope this endeavor will be successful in pursuing mass killings and genocide in the future."
"I also do think that it is important to recognize that even if terrible things happened in the past, they do not need to happen in the future," Albright said. "And that is what this is about. In no way does it put the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on anybody's behavior. On the contrary. It is to examine people's behavior. It is very important for us to move forward."
"It sounds as if you are both saying – if our friends do it, it is not genocide," said another reporter. "And if our enemies do it, it is genocide. A professor at the University of Haifa, Ilan Pappe, has written recently that he believes there is genocide ongoing in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. But you folks wouldn't agree with that because Israel is our friend and we couldn't say that about Israel. Secretary Cohen, you say – we can't say that about Turkey and the Armenian genocide because our boys and girls are in harm's way. If you are going to define genocide by who does it, not by what it is, your task force is in trouble."
"I don't know that even the UN has declared that genocide occurred in the Armenian situation," Cohen said. "We are trying to look forward rather than backwards. On the issue of whether genocide is taking place in the West Bank and Gaza – certainly that will be part of [what] the task force [is] looking at."
"Yes, there is an element of pragmatism," Cohen said. "If someone else's son or daughter is in harm's way, that is a factor that I as an American citizen and as a former Secretary of Defense would have to take into account. And would. And I think anyone serving public office necessarily has to have a set factors to take into account. It is not absolute. This will not be a document that says – this is when the line is crossed, this is the action that will be taken. These are going to be guidelines. They themselves will serve a valuable purpose. It will help to at least raise the issue to a level of both domestic and international concern – hopefully stirring action. That is our goal."
"When you are in the government, and you have to make very tough decisions, you have to look at the overall picture," Albright said. "Otherwise, we are not going to get off the ground. These are very, very hard issues. I would definitely not accept your definition – if friends do it, it's okay, and if enemies do it, it is not. I find that just an unacceptable premise. This task force is going to set forth guidelines for practical action by the United States government. Which is why we want to present this by the end of next year."
"You can have all kinds of emotional arguments why something is wrong and then you never get it off the ground," she said. "You ultimately have to take practical action. That is what is happening in the United States. We are not going to get ourselves into emotional appeals. Because that is not going to work. We are interested in practical steps."
"The experience of the Armenians does indeed conform with the UN Convention," another reporter shot back at Cohen. "In fact, Elie Wiesel has said that the denial of the genocide is the final stage of the genocide. The two of you have personally worked toward ascertaining that the United States government does not take a stand recognizing the Armenian genocide. This is of course based on real, practical political considerations, that you mentioned. However, taking on this new role, how can you reconcile your positions and the U.S. foreign policy? How can you provide credibility that your recommendations will be of use to the United States in its foreign policy and will not be words on a piece of paper that will be acceptable but the US will not follow up on?"
"You talk about political expediency," Cohen responded. "As Secretary of Defense, I had responsibility for every man and woman who was serving in our armed forces. And yes, I would have to take into account whether or not I was placing them in greater jeopardy in order to make a declaration for something that happened back between 1915 and 1923. I would have to weigh that. And frankly, I think the former Secretaries of Defense – Republicans and Democrats alike – all came to the same conclusion. We could not put our men and women in greater danger under these circumstances. Does that mean that we are not in a position to look forward and say – here are some of the things that happened in the past, here are some of the things we did not do in the past, here is something that needs to be done in the future? There is no absolute right or wrong. It's not all black and white. We are going to have to take these into account.
You as a private citizen will be in a position to say – here is a document issued by this esteemed group. What do you Mr. President, what do you Mr. Secretary, intend to do about the atrocities currently taking place in x-country? Are your abdicating your moral leadership, abdicating the U.S. responsibility to lead? To gather and galvanize international support to do something – disinvestment in that particular country, condemning the leadership of that country? Having dealt with ethnic cleansing in the past, to take that experience, as well as what took place in Armenia, as well as what took place in Rwanda, now in Darfur, and say – this is how we have to lead on this issue."
"It's important to recognize what we said in the letter," Albright said. "While we were secretaries, we recognized that mass killings and forced exile had taken place, and we also said that the U.S. policy has been all along for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia on this particular issue. I do think that one of the things that this task force will ultimately recommend is that the parties to the problem have to acknowledge what happened. That is part of the issue. There is not one answer to fit all. This task force is about the future – about preventing genocide." Corporate Crime Reporter
1209 National Press Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20045
202.737.1680
21 Corporate Crime Reporter 45, November 13, 2007
The Genocide Prevention Task Force was unveiled at the National Press Club this morning.
The task force is being co-chair by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen.
It's being convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace.
In addition to Cohen and Albright, its members include: John Danforth, Tom Daschle, Stuart Eizenstat, Michael Gerson, Dan Glickman, Jack Kemp, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, Tom Pickering, Julia Taft, Vin Weber, and Anthony Zinni. "The world agrees that genocide is unacceptable and yet genocide and mass killings continue," Albright said. "Our challenge is to match words to deeds and stop allowing the unacceptable. That task – simple on the surface – is in fact one of the most persistent puzzles of our times. We have a duty to find the answer before the vow of ‘never again' is once again betrayed."
"We are convinced that the U.S. government can and must do better in preventing genocide – a crime that threatens not only our values but our national interests," Cohen said.
But after the opening remarks, Cohen and Albright hit a buzz saw of skeptical questioning from reporters in the First Amendment Room.
"How do you reconcile your work in trying to build a moral American consensus against genocide when just very recently each of you signed letters urging America not to recognize the Armenian genocide?" a reporter asked Cohen and Albright.
"This mission is about the future," Albright answered. "We want to look at ways to try and prevent genocide and mass killing. That is the purpose of this task force. The former Secretaries of State recognized that terrible things happened to the Armenians and tragedies. The letter was primarily about whether this was the appropriate time to raise the issue."
"The fact is that all of us who signed were concerned about the level of killings and the human suffering that took place between 1915 and 1923," Cohen said. "There was also a very deliberate decision to say that we are engaged in warfare at the moment. We have our sons and daughters who are at risk. And we felt that to have the resolution brought might result in reactions on the part of the Turkish government that could place our sons and daughters in greater jeopardy. It was a very practical decision that was made. This was not to say that we overlooked what took place in the past. We are saying – at this point forward, what do we do? How do we marshal public opinion? How do we marshal political action? How do we generate the will to take action in a society that has been reluctant to do so in the past? It involves multiple levels of complexity."
"If we are saying that this isn't the right time to acknowledge this genocide, does that mean that you are arguing that for political expedience purposes, we are not going to be taking action on nor should we take action on future genocides because of what are perceived to be U.S. interests?" another reporter asked.
"We are saying there are no absolutes in this," Cohen answered. "We are going to try and set forth a set of principles that will serve as a guide. And hopefully that guide will allow political leadership in this country and elsewhere. This is not something where the United States is advocating unilateral action. We are talking about the United States taking a lead to help shape public opinion – certainly domestically but also internationally. And this will involve multiple considerations, multiple political factors that have to be taken into account. We hope this endeavor will be successful in pursuing mass killings and genocide in the future."
"I also do think that it is important to recognize that even if terrible things happened in the past, they do not need to happen in the future," Albright said. "And that is what this is about. In no way does it put the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on anybody's behavior. On the contrary. It is to examine people's behavior. It is very important for us to move forward."
"It sounds as if you are both saying – if our friends do it, it is not genocide," said another reporter. "And if our enemies do it, it is genocide. A professor at the University of Haifa, Ilan Pappe, has written recently that he believes there is genocide ongoing in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. But you folks wouldn't agree with that because Israel is our friend and we couldn't say that about Israel. Secretary Cohen, you say – we can't say that about Turkey and the Armenian genocide because our boys and girls are in harm's way. If you are going to define genocide by who does it, not by what it is, your task force is in trouble."
"I don't know that even the UN has declared that genocide occurred in the Armenian situation," Cohen said. "We are trying to look forward rather than backwards. On the issue of whether genocide is taking place in the West Bank and Gaza – certainly that will be part of [what] the task force [is] looking at."
"Yes, there is an element of pragmatism," Cohen said. "If someone else's son or daughter is in harm's way, that is a factor that I as an American citizen and as a former Secretary of Defense would have to take into account. And would. And I think anyone serving public office necessarily has to have a set factors to take into account. It is not absolute. This will not be a document that says – this is when the line is crossed, this is the action that will be taken. These are going to be guidelines. They themselves will serve a valuable purpose. It will help to at least raise the issue to a level of both domestic and international concern – hopefully stirring action. That is our goal."
"When you are in the government, and you have to make very tough decisions, you have to look at the overall picture," Albright said. "Otherwise, we are not going to get off the ground. These are very, very hard issues. I would definitely not accept your definition – if friends do it, it's okay, and if enemies do it, it is not. I find that just an unacceptable premise. This task force is going to set forth guidelines for practical action by the United States government. Which is why we want to present this by the end of next year."
"You can have all kinds of emotional arguments why something is wrong and then you never get it off the ground," she said. "You ultimately have to take practical action. That is what is happening in the United States. We are not going to get ourselves into emotional appeals. Because that is not going to work. We are interested in practical steps."
"The experience of the Armenians does indeed conform with the UN Convention," another reporter shot back at Cohen. "In fact, Elie Wiesel has said that the denial of the genocide is the final stage of the genocide. The two of you have personally worked toward ascertaining that the United States government does not take a stand recognizing the Armenian genocide. This is of course based on real, practical political considerations, that you mentioned. However, taking on this new role, how can you reconcile your positions and the U.S. foreign policy? How can you provide credibility that your recommendations will be of use to the United States in its foreign policy and will not be words on a piece of paper that will be acceptable but the US will not follow up on?"
"You talk about political expediency," Cohen responded. "As Secretary of Defense, I had responsibility for every man and woman who was serving in our armed forces. And yes, I would have to take into account whether or not I was placing them in greater jeopardy in order to make a declaration for something that happened back between 1915 and 1923. I would have to weigh that. And frankly, I think the former Secretaries of Defense – Republicans and Democrats alike – all came to the same conclusion. We could not put our men and women in greater danger under these circumstances. Does that mean that we are not in a position to look forward and say – here are some of the things that happened in the past, here are some of the things we did not do in the past, here is something that needs to be done in the future? There is no absolute right or wrong. It's not all black and white. We are going to have to take these into account.
You as a private citizen will be in a position to say – here is a document issued by this esteemed group. What do you Mr. President, what do you Mr. Secretary, intend to do about the atrocities currently taking place in x-country? Are your abdicating your moral leadership, abdicating the U.S. responsibility to lead? To gather and galvanize international support to do something – disinvestment in that particular country, condemning the leadership of that country? Having dealt with ethnic cleansing in the past, to take that experience, as well as what took place in Armenia, as well as what took place in Rwanda, now in Darfur, and say – this is how we have to lead on this issue."
"It's important to recognize what we said in the letter," Albright said. "While we were secretaries, we recognized that mass killings and forced exile had taken place, and we also said that the U.S. policy has been all along for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia on this particular issue. I do think that one of the things that this task force will ultimately recommend is that the parties to the problem have to acknowledge what happened. That is part of the issue. There is not one answer to fit all. This task force is about the future – about preventing genocide." Corporate Crime Reporter
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Saturday, November 10, 2007
Carlin gets it right.
We live in sad times. Our mainstream press and politicians are telling us bullshit and the only people telling the truth are either wackos like Mike Gravel and Ron Paul or comedians. This just proves the Carlin's thesis. The media and the politicians are all in cahoots. REpublican/Democrats what a fucking joke. Oh ya, that is right there is a difference, one party hate fags and the other tolerates them, one loves corporations and the other does too, one offers unconditional support to Israel and the other tries to out do them, one supports health insurance companies and the other wants to get every american for profit health care insurance, and on and on and on,.............................
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
The beginnings of the Madness of Justin.
In 1998 the great liberal began Operation Desert Fox, Desert Fox being the name given to Hitler’s greatest General, while I was at work at Paradise Bakery in Portland, OR. A block away the protesters were amassing at the Federal Building to scream about the unnecessary loss of life that was going to be forced on the Iraqis. A great feeling of justice swept over me.
Here I was outraged at the disregard for human life and as I walked outside I saw that another hundred people were so angry they felt the need to come downtown and put their safety on the line. It seemed, to me, that killing people was disgusting and should be opposed, especially when the world’s most powerful country was perpetrating it. Unfortunately I was unable to participate in the protest since I had to close up shop but I was able to tune into Pacifica Radio, of course you have never heard of it since it doesn’t spew the approved corporate bullshit, and they were interviewing Professor Chomsky. Chomsky is a moralist along the lines of Kant and Russell, who believes that something is only moral if everyone, in similar circumstances, can exercise the same actions as all the others. In other words, if it is okay for us to invade nations that we perceive as threats then it is just as moral for others to do the same.
Chomsky went on to outline the outright lies, the hypocrisy and the human toll of this new attack, by Clinton, on Iraq. His words resonated with me unlike many other people have in the past and since he was talking about morality and the principle of universality I got hooked.
I began to realize that I voted for this warmonger asshole Clinton and therefore I too was responsible for his actions, even though I could argue false consciousness. I was led to believe that the Democratic Party cared about other human beings and were the progressive party. This night was very illuminating for me. I went from a mild Socialist, their ideas always made the most sense for me since I was not out to get all I could, to a radical. At the same time my opinions went from being given some respect to receiving outright hostility from the Democrats, which I soon learned meant I was on the right course.
Here I was outraged at the disregard for human life and as I walked outside I saw that another hundred people were so angry they felt the need to come downtown and put their safety on the line. It seemed, to me, that killing people was disgusting and should be opposed, especially when the world’s most powerful country was perpetrating it. Unfortunately I was unable to participate in the protest since I had to close up shop but I was able to tune into Pacifica Radio, of course you have never heard of it since it doesn’t spew the approved corporate bullshit, and they were interviewing Professor Chomsky. Chomsky is a moralist along the lines of Kant and Russell, who believes that something is only moral if everyone, in similar circumstances, can exercise the same actions as all the others. In other words, if it is okay for us to invade nations that we perceive as threats then it is just as moral for others to do the same.
Chomsky went on to outline the outright lies, the hypocrisy and the human toll of this new attack, by Clinton, on Iraq. His words resonated with me unlike many other people have in the past and since he was talking about morality and the principle of universality I got hooked.
I began to realize that I voted for this warmonger asshole Clinton and therefore I too was responsible for his actions, even though I could argue false consciousness. I was led to believe that the Democratic Party cared about other human beings and were the progressive party. This night was very illuminating for me. I went from a mild Socialist, their ideas always made the most sense for me since I was not out to get all I could, to a radical. At the same time my opinions went from being given some respect to receiving outright hostility from the Democrats, which I soon learned meant I was on the right course.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
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